Title: Gothic 1 Remake

Release: June 5, 2026

Platform: PC PS5 Xbox Series X|S

Developer: Alkimia Interactive

Publisher: THQ Nordic

Genre: Action RPG

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 15 Hours

--- A BRUTAL WELCOME TO THE NEW CAMP ---

I am wandering through the New Camp, totally lost. A bandit approached me earlier and asked me to talk to another character who was in charge of water so I could gather some for the surrounding farmers. He did not tell me where I might find this guy. So I started wandering around, looking for the specifically named NPC. I spent a full day walking in circles. I was unable to find him anywhere. The next day, the bandit stopped me to chastise me for not doing what he asked and proceeded to beat me up for it. I drew my weapon, won the fight, and the quest was finished after that. But I would have rather actually finished the quest proper had I known where the second guy was.

That is what makes Gothic Remake so loved by some, or hated by others. It is an Action Adventure RPG that doesn’t hold your hand. Instead, it expects you to navigate and discover things on your own. You play as the “Hero” with absolutely no character customization options. The setting throws you into an old mining area. Condemned prisoners were originally sent here to dig up magic crystals for the kingdom. A mysterious device placed a magic barrier around the mine, trapping everyone inside and allowing the prisoners to take control. The zone is now run by bandits. The king is forced to trade with them for the magic rocks.

--- LEARNING TO SURVIVE THE BARRIER ---

You are sent into the zone to deliver a letter to the lead fire mages. Upon entry, you are immediately beaten up by some locals. Thankfully, right after that, you meet someone who gives you basic survival advice before leaving you to fend for yourself. From there, you have to figure out survival and how the society inside the barrier operates. It is split into three main camps. The Old Camp features Warders and Fire Mages who want to eventually break the magical barrier. The New Camp, which branched off from the Old Camp, features bandits and water mages who also want to break the barrier but disagree with the Old Camp on how to do it. Then you have the Swamp Camp. They are home to the Templars and are completely dedicated to the production and use of “swampweed” to commune with their deity, the Sleeper.

Exploring this world offers no hand-holding at the beginning and very little guidance on where to go. There are no default quest waypoints or map markers. However, you can purchase a map of the entire zone early on. This map shows your current location, the direction you are facing, and lets you place custom markers. This makes navigation much easier. The world feels nearly perfect in size. It is not so small that everything feels cramped, or so big that travel feels tedious. The world feels huge and intimidating at first, but it shrinks as you gain familiarity with an area and expands again when a quest takes you somewhere completely new.

--- ECONOMICS AND EXPLORATION ---

You have to be careful where you step. There are no indicators or warnings for restricted areas. I walked past a guard into a building I wasn’t allowed in, and I was attacked immediately. No warning or blocking my way. Travel gets much better and faster later on once a mount is unlocked. The mount is a tamed scavenger, a local beast that looks like a raptor. But it is obtainable only by finding the specific NPC who tames them and completing a few tasks for him. You spend a lot of time jumping through hoops for people that will take you back and forth from camp to camp for hours. Thankfully, there are no carrying capacity limits. You can pick up as much junk as you want.

And you will need that junk to survive the brutal economy. Different merchants value items differently. Some pay more for herbs, while others pay nothing. They also use dynamic pricing. Overselling the same item to a merchant gradually lowers its selling price. Merchants have a finite amount of “nuggets,” the game’s currency, on hand. To maximize transactions, I used a strategy like buying all their arrows and selling enough junk to match the price and their exact nugget count perfectly. Navigating the dynamic merchant economy felt like a fun mini-game in itself for maximizing your profits. But the trading UI can be a bother. If you accidentally put something in the sell pile that you wanted to keep, you have to cancel the entire transaction and start over.

--- COMBAT, MUGGINGS, AND BOWS ---

Combat and survival are brutally unforgiving early on. Starting out it didn’t take long for a weak molerat to take me out, and the enemies only got scarier the farther into the game I got. But the early-game enemies did eventually become trivial as I leveled up and acquired better weapons, making them good sources of meat and sellable parts. You can use crafting mechanics like cooking and forging gear, but they require finding materials and learning recipes first. The only default recipe is cooking meat on a pan, which I stockpiled to heal myself.

I focused more on bow combat. It wasn’t that melee combat was hard to understand, it just really hurt to get hit, so I wanted to keep my distance in every fight. Improving weapon handling unlocks faster combos and finisher skills, but I never trained one-handed combat enough to use it. I found that if I started a fight from far enough away, I could take most enemies out before they got close enough to touch me.

The combat features a unique knockout mechanic. NPCs often intend to knock you out rather than kill you. If knocked out, they will steal a bunch of your inventory, from trash to key weapons. I usually reloaded a save when this happened, treating it like a death because I would be too poor and defenseless after getting back up. But you can also knock out NPCs. Even with a sharp arrow through the face, they just fall to the ground. When they fall, you get a tiny one to two-second window to steal their equipment before they stand back up. Because I kept my distance with a bow, there were plenty of times when it was difficult for me to get up to an enemy and steal all of their gear before they got up.

But it was really nice to take all of their nuggets and weapons. Some of my best weapons came from that. And if they were a particularly mean, janky enemy, like a couple of blackmailers I refused to give money to who would constantly attack me if I got near, I could knock them out and take all of their equipment so they no longer had a means to kill me. There was also an option to execute a person instead of just looting them if I was feeling particularly mean after winning a duel.

--- PROGRESSION AND PUZZLES ---

Progressing your character is a slow burn between questing and combat to gain xp and level up, increasing Max HP and granting ten Learning Points, which are spent along with nuggets at NPC trainers. Most of my nuggets went to training. The most annoying part of training was figuring out who trained what and remembering their location when I finally had enough money and Learning Points to spend there. I thought it was really cool how the trainer explained to my character how they could get better at that task, like relaxing my shoulders and fusing to the earth when shooting a bow. I didn’t have to play any differently, but the power increase was noticeable.

It took me about eight hours of playtime to formally join one of the three camps and get basic armor, though the new armor didn’t feel much stronger than the rags I started with. The base armor given when I joined a camp still sucked, and I never made enough money to purchase the upgrades available at my camp. I focused mainly on offense over defense, which could have a lot to do with why I died after only a couple of hits…

The one thing I really saw improvement in through training was lockpicking. It features a unique, interconnected tumbler puzzle. I fell in love with the first lockpicking experience, but then I started to encounter more difficult locks that took up way too much of my time. I would save right before attempting it and burn through my entire lockpick supply very fast, so I would reload and try again. After quite a few frustrating failed attempts, I marked the location on my map and returned later after speaking with a lockpick trainer. Then it was fun again, but still a challenge. Trying to memorize which tumblers affected others and how was tough but fun. With no training, the lock would fall back to the beginning if a pick broke, but with some training, everything stayed, and I could start where my pick broke, making the process so much nicer and more enjoyable.

--- SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND SLOW PACING ---

Visually, you have to remember it is a remake of a 21-year-old game. I didn’t play the original, so I can’t compare, but overall the visuals are good, though definitely not latest-generation. Character models feel a little stiff, but the environments are pretty and distinct. The varied landscapes prevent you from feeling lost or like you are walking in circles through repetitive trees and bushes. The overall audio is good, but the ambient weather sound effects are almost too realistic. Specifically, the wind is almost too realistic. I hated it because it sounded exactly like actual wind blowing directly into my ears.

Ultimately, the pacing is very slow. It takes over ten hours and still doesn’t pick up speed or momentum. I played for fifteen hours total before deciding to put it down. The lack of direction for simple quests is incredibly frustrating. I never got to experience the cool and intense melee combat the game is known for. I had fun learning the game, but it quickly turned into a dull walking simulator.

--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

After fifteen hours, there were only a few things I found you may want to watch out for, like a lot of cursing throughout the game. The first cut scene has some dude literally torn in half by an orc. Beyond that, you get covered in blood after combat, which can then be washed off in water, leaving a couple of red pools. There aren’t copious amounts of blood flying everywhere, but it is visibly present. Swampweed is a prevalent in-game drug used by nearly everyone for relaxation, complete with a faction and village dedicated to its production and religious use. The game is rated M, but I’ve seen much worse than this with a mature rating.

--- RECOMMENDED? ---

If you’re a fan of the original, I’m sure you’ll love this. If you’re unfamiliar with the game and this is your first experience, like me, I’d leave this one to the original fans. Without the backing of nostalgia, this game doesn’t offer many entertaining aspects. Don’t get me wrong, there are some fun and interesting mechanics to play with, but more than half of my time with the game was spent running around and trying to find specific people to talk to. Not exactly an exhilarating game to play. If it takes more than fifteen hours to pick up pace, I’d rather play something else.

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Title: The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time

Release: May 28, 2026

Platform: PC

Developer: Coin Drop Games

Publisher: Coin Drop Games

Genre: Puzzle RPG

ESRB: N/A

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 8 Hours

--- A BRILLIANT TRAP ---

The greatest trick ever pulled by a modern video game is convincing you it is just a simple, nostalgic trip down memory lane. The Remake of The End of The Greatest RPG of All Time is a brilliant, mind-breaking trap. It operates as a highly meta, fictional concept centered around a beloved 90s game created by a fictional developer known as CircleSoft. But beneath that charming retro surface lies an incredibly unique puzzle experience that completely shatters the mold. It actively subverts your expectations from the very second you hit start, forcing you to rethink everything you know about classic role-playing adventures.

--- ULTIMATE POWER, ZERO KNOWLEDGE ---

You boot up the title screen and find only one of three save files unlocked. Loading it places your party at ninety-nine point five percent completion, dropping you right at the start of the final area. You start the journey with a fully stocked inventory of endgame gear, ultimate weapons, and mysterious items. But none of them have descriptions. You possess ultimate power with zero knowledge. You have to learn their vital uses by uncovering lost pages from the game’s original physical manual, scattered throughout the world. Every item in your bag is a total mystery until you find the exact hint explaining its function. It creates a fascinating disconnect where you are mechanically powerful but intellectually helpless.

--- FLIPPING THE SCRIPT ON COMBAT ---

This unconventional design bleeds directly into how you fight. Combat flips the script on what you expect from a classic battle system. Since this is supposedly a remake of a turn-based JRPG, absolutely nothing happens in combat until I explicitly input commands for my characters. It strips away real-time reflexes and replaces them with intense critical thinking. Every attack does zero damage unless the enemy is inherently weak to it. Sometimes that weakness is a specific elemental affinity attached to a strike. Other times, it’s the outcome of a complex special combo of moves from one character, or even intricate moves chained together using multiple party members. You are essentially solving intense logic puzzles while staring down massive pixelated monsters.

--- FORTY-FIVE MINUTES OF DISGUST ---

A few hours into the game, I hit a massive wall that perfectly encapsulates this brutal loop. At the start, I accidentally figured out the first part of the fight, but then I spent forty-five minutes of disgust and aggravating reading while I desperately tried to figure out the next part. I kept throwing every combo I had discovered up to that point at this specific enemy, constantly dying to it and having to start completely over. It was a vicious cycle of trial and punishing error. But then I finally paid attention to why the very first part of my attack was working. I adjusted my strategy, matched the clues, entered the correct commands, and finally crushed the beast. That exact moment was exhilarating and put me right back into having fun. It completely reset my brain. From that point on, I paid attention to every single word I found in the game so as to avoid falling into an endless trap again. Not that it prevented every tough part, but I was never frustrated after that.

--- THE MID-FIGHT MANUAL ---

Here is how a fight actually plays out in your hands. You trigger a random enemy encounter and quickly realize your standard attacks are useless. You try an elemental spell, and if it fails, the enemy retaliates. You take a chunk of damage, but you survive to go again. So, right in the middle of the fight, you pull up the in-game guide. You frantically flip through the pages, looking at scattered clues for that particular enemy or studying the different combo trees you could unleash. Puzzles can be intensely complicated until the underlying design scheme finally clicks. All the necessary answers are contained somewhere within the game, they are just rarely obvious to the naked eye.

--- A MASTERPIECE INTERFACE ---

Luckily, the in-game guide itself is a true masterpiece of user interface design. It serves as your ultimate survival tool. It features handwritten notes from the fictional developers’ childhood playthroughs, taped inside, along with frantic scribbles written directly on the pages. Because this crucial guide is accessible at any time, even mid-fight, it eliminates the need to physically write down external notes on a pad of paper. You do all your studying, cross-referencing, and theorizing right on your screen. You will spend a significant amount of time reading notes, flipping back and forth between chapters, and testing your hypotheses in combat. It demands your absolute patience. There were definitely some low points and genuine frustration while deciphering specific puzzles, but finally cracking them always gave me a massive adrenaline rush.

--- LOGGING OFF INTO THE DARK ---

As if the combat puzzles weren’t complex enough, the game pushes its meta concept even further with the log-off mechanic. At any time, you can log off, and the game literally pulls you away from the bright main fantasy screen and drops you into a bizarre, puzzle-filled maze of hallways. Logging off of the core game opens up a wildly interesting section full of new things to discover. The atmosphere shifts dramatically from colorful fantasy to unsettling reality. Unlocking new rooms and finding more hidden manual pages in this liminal space requires you to input specific numbers and cryptic words discovered in the developer videos scattered throughout the game.

--- BREAKING THE FIFTH WALL ---

The developer videos and MP3 commentaries are the exact mechanisms you use to piece together the lore and the overarching plot. As you solve puzzles by paying strict attention to the videos found in-game, you uncover the turbulent history of the new developers and the agonizing creation of this legendary RPG. There is highly pertinent information found within those sterile hallways. You literally won’t be able to finish the game without making your way through them. The plot starts to take a strange, dark turn the deeper into the hallways you travel. The cheerful fantasy facade melts away entirely. It becomes a necessary part of the overall journey. This dual-layered structure creates a deeply complex plot that heavily breaks the fifth wall, going well beyond your standard fourth-wall breaks.

--- A FLAWLESS VISUAL MIX ---

Visually, the game is a stunning achievement. The developers successfully translated classic 2D eight-bit sprites into a fully realized 3D environment, allowing the camera to sweep dynamically through the dimensional spaces. It perfectly captures the comforting vibe of a 90s classic while offering the modern visual clarity required to navigate its complex web of environmental clues.

--- HIGH DIFFICULTY, HIGH REWARD ---

You will need every bit of that visual clarity because the game demands intense, unwavering focus. Every “random” enemy encounter is a stubborn roadblock that requires specific playable-character move combos to defeat. The exact solutions are almost always hidden somewhere within those guide pages. But once you find your rhythm, the whole package sings beautifully. Most of the puzzles lean toward the complicated side, but they all ended up being a lot of fun by the time the credits rolled. The sheer satisfaction of understanding the provided hints easily carries you through the toughest, most aggravating sections.

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--- SHORT BUT DENSE ---

The pacing is also incredibly tight, leaving no room for filler content. The entire experience takes eight hours to reach one hundred percent completion. That tight timeframe includes finishing the main plot and unlocking every single achievement available. There isn’t much longevity here in the traditional sense. After you wrap up that initial eight-hour playthrough, there isn’t much pull to get back into the game for a second round. You have solved the mysteries, and the element of surprise is gone. But those eight hours are incredibly dense, mentally challenging, and wholly original from start to finish.

--- CRACKING THE CODE ---

The developers are still actively working on the game, a testament to their commitment to the community. In some cases, they are making the hints a little more obvious through patches, hopefully without taking away too much of the core difficulty. The fragile balance between maddening frustration and glorious revelation is the lifeblood of this experience. If they make the clues too simple, the magic vanishes. When you finally piece together a four-step combo by connecting a scribbled note on page twelve with a throwaway line in an MP3 file, you feel like an absolute genius. That specific loop of intense study followed by flawless execution is exactly why this game leaves such a lasting impression.

--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

This experience would likely be quite boring for kids to watch due to the heavy focus on deciphering puzzles and reading menus. The gameplay heavily revolves around staring at a digital manual and solving complex logic problems rather than action-packed combat sequences. And there are some isolated instances of strong cursing found in small sections of the game.

--- RECOMMENDED? ---

If you enjoy complicated puzzles where the answers are right in front of you and a wholly unique experience in terms of storytelling and wall-breaking moments, I would definitely recommend this game. I was highly impressed by the complexity and the unique, out-of-the-box style.

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Title: Forza Horizon 6

Release: May 19, 2026

Platform: PC Xbox X|S

Developer: Playground Games

Publisher: Xbox Game Studios

Genre: Racing

ESRB: E

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 16 Hours

--- A GORGEOUS BUT RESTRICTIVE PLAYGROUND ---

I am tearing through a dense forest, smashing through brush and weaving between ancient trees, with a massive 5x skill multiplier flashing on my screen. I am racking up points for a flawless off-road drift when my car suddenly launches into the air and gets completely high-centered on a cluster of rocks. My momentum dies instantly. My accrued points vanish in a flash. And because my car is essentially indestructible, I am left sitting there with a few minor dents and scratches, forced to use the time-rewind feature to undo my mistake. This is Forza Horizon 6. A casual racing experience that gives you a gorgeous Japanese playground to explore, but strictly dictates exactly how you are allowed to play in it.

The environments are set in the beautiful Japanese countryside. You get a wide variety of terrain, ranging from bright coastal areas to snow-covered mountain peaks. It features a dynamic day-and-night cycle, along with many different weather conditions that constantly shift the mood of your road trip. The vehicles themselves look great, featuring a mix of well-known classics and modern works of art. You can customize them extensively with custom paint jobs and decals you can create yourself or download from others. While the cars do show minor visual damage when crashing, they remain stubbornly intact. Sadly, I couldn’t crash in an amazing fashion. It is also worth noting that the performance was mostly smooth, though I encountered minor stuttering during specific races when the screen became highly congested with dense visual assets, like massive fields of flowers.

--- A LACKLUSTER ROAD TRIP ---

The overall story is very lackluster. It serves only as a basic framework to give purpose to unlocking events. You are accompanied by two friends who attempt the Horizon events alongside you and participate in story-related events. Progression centers entirely on earning points to collect wristbands, which eventually unlock massive, cinematic Horizon events. The game does offer specific story-related missions, such as low-stress day-drive caravans. During these, a leader gives a tour, sharing the history of the local area and the cars in your group. I found these caravan tours to be an enjoyable, low-stress change of pace.

The gameplay mainly involves completing standard races and PR events like speed traps, drift zones, long jumps, and pathfinders. Races are divided into strict classes ranging from D to S. This is where my biggest grievance with the game lies. I usually like to find a couple of cars I really like and just use those for everything. However, that is simply impossible here. For nearly every race, I was limited to a specific pool of vehicles based on class and type. Sometimes it locked me out based on age or abilities. Most of the time, it was something like a rally car race or a race restricted to strictly off-road vehicles. Upgrading a favorite car to a higher class locks it out of lower-tier races completely. My limited real-world knowledge of cars led to heavy confusion, especially regarding why car selection pools differed so drastically for seemingly similar races. In most cases, it was beyond my knowledge why one car could be used in a race while another could not.

--- THE GARAGE GRIND ---

While you can fast-travel home to upgrade or downgrade a favorite car to fit a specific race class, the process feels like a massive chore. You have to sit through long-winded loading screens, typically when entering or leaving your estate. I found it far too time-consuming to travel back to my house to upgrade the engines of specific cars available for certain races. So I upgraded the few I really liked strictly for open-world exploration. For the actual events, I just used what was available for the races that gave more points. Credits are plentiful enough that it is usually easier to just buy a required car from the available pool rather than modifying an existing one. I did find some races that allowed me to take whatever I wanted, and that was exciting. I finally got to take the car I really liked and had put a lot of money into. The other racers’ cars would then scale their class to mine, so I was never going to win without any effort. But those moments were the exception, not the rule. The constant restrictions were a persistent annoyance throughout the game.

The game offers a highly customizable difficulty. It includes a time-rewind feature and even an auto-drive option that can fully take over the car mid-race. You can tweak specific parts of vehicles and do fine-tuning before a race, like adjusting the PSI in the tires for better handling or speed. But I found the driving physics to be incredibly forgiving regardless of your setup. The weather does not seem to have a major impact on driving. There was no significant difference in handling between a dry track and a wet track after a recent rain shower. You can drive off-road through forests indefinitely, as the only major environmental hazard is getting stuck on rocks. Oddly, despite the sleek vehicles, the cars never felt like they were going very fast. It creates a weird disconnect between the visual speed and the actual feeling of momentum.

--- DRIVING WITH GHOSTS ---

My experience was played solo and offline, with the races being populated by Drivatars, AI opponents bearing the names of random players and your real-world friends, creating the illusion of playing with others. As you drive, you constantly accrue points and multipliers through the skill chain system. These points keep building until you stop to bank them. Hitting a wall or crashing causes the accrued points to disappear instantly. Banked skill points can be invested into individual cars as perks. Most perks increase your point generation, but some end-of-line perks grant experience boosts for a set number of specific races.

Exploring different areas and finding collectibles rewards you with stamps. These eventually unlock the exact map locations of extremely rare hidden cars. When found, there is a cinematic moment where you grab a camera to examine the old car inside a barn while your friends discuss its history and rarity. If I were into cars, I would probably have had a lot more excitement and respect for the rare vehicles. I only used them a couple of times, and that was strictly to explore the open world right after they were unlocked. You can also purchase houses that unlock special perks, such as percentage increases to experience or cheaper cars. Only one specific house allows you to customize an exterior track to play on. The others simply allow garage customization and a spot to showcase a car for the online community.

--- SETTING THE BAR TOO HIGH ---

The Horizon events are huge, cinematic PR stunts. You will find yourself racing stunt planes or navigating giant winding courses down snowy mountains. The second Horizon event was extremely memorable. It was me racing against something I never would have expected in a racing game about cars. Without spoiling anything, it was a very fun race with some memorable moments throughout the course. The only problem I had with it was that it felt like an amazing reward far too early in the game. The next few Horizon Events I unlocked did not feel nearly as cool. The bar was set pretty high in that early event, and they couldn’t reach it again.

I logged sixteen hours of gameplay, but I eventually ran out of standard races and hit a progression wall. This required a heavy grind through PR events to accrue enough points. The PR event grind became a hard stopping point for me. The game is no longer compelling enough to finish. There is a plethora of open-world collectibles to fill time between races, including mascots, experience boards, and hidden cars. But it simply started to feel very repetitive.

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--- RECOMMENDED? ---

If you are a longtime fan of the Forza series, I imagine Forza Horizon 6 will feel like a comfortable, familiar ride in a gorgeous new Japanese setting. However, as someone who has always leaned toward the Need For Speed franchise, this sixteen-hour detour didn’t manage to convert me. The restrictive car classes, lackluster story, and frustrating progression wall overshadowed the beautiful environments. It’s a great game if you are deeply into car culture, but for me, I still prefer the street racing of NFS.

Title: Directive 8020

Release: May 12, 2026

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox Series X|S

Developer: Supermassive Games

Publisher: Supermassive Games

Genre: Sci-Fi Survival Horror

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played:

--- SURVIVING DIRECTIVE 8020: A SCI-FI DISASTER MOVIE ---

You are 13 light-years from Earth, drifting through the cold void of space, with humanity’s survival resting squarely on your shoulders. The mission to terraform a new home planet is tense but necessary. Then a catastrophic accident tears through the ship, plunging the entire expedition into chaos. Suddenly you are responsible for keeping an entire crew alive against impossible odds while something monstrous hunts you in the dark. Welcome to Directive 8020.

This is a story-driven horror game where your choices actually matter. The premise isn’t new, but the plot becomes highly entertaining once it sinks its teeth in after a few hours of playtime.

--- SHAPING THE SURVIVORS ---

This game does not hand you a single clear protagonist. You eventually play as all the characters to get through the game. You make choices for everyone as you navigate this terrible situation. It did feel odd deciding how they would react at the very start of the game. I had no idea what type of person they were or how they would act under pressure. I couldn’t tell whether I was deciding what kind of character they were or, in that case, how to react for them.

You get to decide whether a person will joke in their responses or whether another character should be strict and by the book. It almost feels like a psychological test.

There really is no wrong choice. But each one carries a consequence of sorts. Sometimes the result is obvious right away. Other times it takes hours before you realize the outcome of a tiny choice you made much earlier in the run. That delayed consequence is a fantastic way to build tension.

--- REWRITING THE TIMELINE ---

Exploration yields secrets, including lore-expanding notes and video diaries created by the crew. A single playthrough is relatively short, taking about 7 hours to complete, but the replay value is exceptionally high. It is very easy to miss a lot of content on a first run with all of the branching paths.

After beating the game, I had the option to go back at any time to where I made a choice. The UI showed a picture of the path I took and lines for the branching paths. They usually branch out and come back together at a single point, where more branching could take place afterward. During my initial playthrough, I went forward with every choice and was able to finish with just three deaths. The game shows a counter of how many possible deaths you can see across everyone. Looking at that number, there are quite a few grim possibilities.

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--- BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENTS, BROKEN NECKS ---

Visually, the environmental and alien graphics are well executed. The alien-affected ship areas look absolutely incredible. But the human character models and animations are stiff and janky throughout the game. I ran into a bunch of bizarre anatomical bugs.

During serious conversations, a character could be face-to-face with another person, and their eyes are flying upward, staring into the distance at absolutely nothing. Not in a contemplative way. It just completely fails to fit the situation. Then, other times during chase sequences, characters would look behind them while running, and I saw someone turn their head in a near 180-degree spin to look behind themselves. It is a terrifying, Exorcist-style head spin that completely breaks the tension.

--- SNEAKING AND QUICK TIME EVENTS ---

The gameplay itself is minimal. You primarily sneak to avoid enemies. Every character has a scanner that helps you keep track of who you are hiding from. You crouch behind cover and sneak just out of their line of sight. Usually, it was not difficult to gauge the enemy’s preset pathing, so you could time your movements perfectly. And if you happened to be noticed for a second, the game was very generous with how long a monster could see you before attacking, giving plenty of time to get back into hiding.

Things could get dicey when the enemy was supposed to be in a specific spot as I entered an area. They would teleport to another room right in front of me.

I guess they did it for the fear factor or to keep the moment intense, but it was more annoying than anything. Sneaking around got tougher as the story went on. The monsters you hide from move more chaotically and faster. It made it difficult to decide when to move. But it never got so intense or difficult that I was ever actually caught, unless it was a scripted failure.

Action sequences rely heavily on a multitude of Quick Time Events. Playing with a mouse and keyboard caused some serious frustration. The final section of the game is filled to the brim with QTEs. That was the singular time I repeatedly failed and caused a faux pas or two. I highly recommend playing with a controller right from the start to avoid those accidental inputs. Every failure was admittedly my own fault, nothing to do with the game.

--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

This game carries a very mature tone. Language is heavy, with frequent profanity and curse words shouted in rage and fear throughout the entire game. The violence is graphic and bloody. Deaths can be gruesome. Bodies are shown chopped, cut, and mangled beyond recognition. The game also features freaky-looking and scary monsters in numerous locations. It may be best to wait until after bedtime to fire this game up.

--- RECOMMENDED? ---

I recommend this game if you are into games where choices matter. I didn’t find it scary, even though I think it was supposed to be. There were a couple of jump scares and a single moment that had me on my toes, but for the rest I was just going through the motions, watching the story unfold with the choices I made. The creators of this game also made Until Dawn. I never played that one, but I watched it played, and it was much more intense and scary than this game.

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Title: Will: Follow the Light

Release: May 7, 2026

Platform: PC PS5 Xbox Series X|S

Developer: TomorrowHead Studio

Publisher: TomorrowHead Studio

Genre: Action-Adventure Exploration Atmospheric

ESRB: E

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 6 hours

--- A FATHER’S LACKLUSTER SEARCH ---

Searching for a missing child in the aftermath of a massive mudslide should be a frantic, desperate race against time. But in Will: Follow the Light, it feels like a casual weekend chore simulator. This game takes a genuinely gripping premise and buries it under hours of menial tasks, robotic acting, and some of the most frustrating puzzle mechanics I have encountered in a long time.

The story puts you in the shoes of Will. You are a lighthouse keeper who initially just needs to check some weather equipment during an incoming storm. You learn through your town contact, Cass, that your estranged father took your son Thomas out on a boat right before a major storm is about to hit. Then a massive mudslide rips through and destroys a lot of the town. Will discovers his family never returned and sets out to find them.

That is a fantastic hook for a plot. The problem is the monotone voice acting, which completely drains every ounce of emotional weight from the journey. Will sounds like he is reading a grocery list instead of expressing genuine worry for his missing child or anger at the upsetting situations around him. He is supposed to be on an emergency hunt, but he is so easily distracted by reliving his past and doing menial chores that the entire premise falls apart.

--- CHORES AND COMPASSES ---

The gameplay loop is heavily focused on first-person puzzle-solving and tedious traversal through spaces that look large but are ultimately empty. The opening town section is an absolute slog to get through. You have to prepare a boat and figure out the aftermath of the storm. All the while, you are forced to listen to a highly annoying, constant helicopter sound flying around town. You are basically doing chores for lazy NPCs who should have handled their own busywork long before you arrived.

Once you finally get on the water, the boat demands active mechanical management. You have to constantly adjust your sails, steer the wheel, and toggle the motor, sometimes through deep, obscuring fog that absolutely tanks your visibility. Frankly, it is a massive relief when the skip-sailing button pops up after you get it going.

Then we have to talk about the color-adjusting lantern. Shining the correctly colored light on crudely scratched images floating in the air or etched on walls reveals memories you can use to solve puzzles or expand the backstory. Sometimes you see a memory of Will’s father talking to someone, leaving a key behind that you need to open a door. Other times, it just shows a conversation that explains a lock combination. And the lantern can only hold so much charge. When it inevitably dies, you have to find a charging station and solve a minor puzzle by aligning frequencies. It’s quite a bother when a required item runs out of juice and you have to track down a spot to charge it.

The absolute worst offender in the entire game is the Azimuth compass puzzle. I had to look up the definition of “Azimuth” outside the game just to understand my object,ive and even that was a tad confusing. Then it required frustrating, pixel-perfect precision to find the direction of a lighthouse beam. I spent ten minutes running around, watching lines on a compass, waiting for the center to light up, and carefully aligning a bezel to the north position. It was completely miserable to figure out.

--- SURREAL SHIFTS AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ---

The journey also leans heavily into bizarre, surreal territory. One minute you are navigating a seaside village in a boat. After a bit of walking, you suddenly find yourself at the top of a snowy mountain, hopping onto a sled pulled by dogs. The sledding section is short and easy to manage, since you just have to steer the dogs and follow the flags. But the shift is so jarring that it makes you wonder how your father and son got there on a simple boat ride.

The game never fully resolves the ambiguity of whether this journey was real or a hallucination. The mystery of how it concluded was the only thing keeping me going, but the ending gave me zero answers.

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--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

There are no major concerns regarding inappropriate content. The language is very mild, and there are absolutely no scary or unsettling scenes. But the slow pacing, lack of entertaining sequences, and constant menial tasks mean that any kids watching the game will likely get extremely bored very quickly. Who knows what they’ll get up to then while you figure out what the hell an azimuth is.

--- RECOMMENDED? ---

I would not recommend this game. Some puzzles were interesting, but most of it felt like I was doing chores for lazy NPCs while I was supposed to be on an emergency hunt for my missing child. The story was the best part, but it still could have been told or packaged better. There are much more entertaining and fun indies out there for a much lower price.

Title: Saros

Release: April 30, 2026

Platform: PS5

Developer: Housemarque

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Genre: Action, Third-Person Shooter, Roguelike

ESRB: T

Reviewed on: PS5

Time Played: 17 Hours

--- THE ATMOSPHERE OF CARCOSA ---

The shifting alien world of Carcosa feels like it wants to consume you the moment you step foot on it. A dominant golden hue coats the entire environment, illuminating dark, machinery-filled canyons and marshes crawling with malformed, machine-like monsters. In Saros, Housemarque’s new action-adventure roguelike bullet-hell shooter, you play as Arjun Devraj, a Soltari enforcer with a massive hero complex.

Deployed by Soltari on the Echelon IV, your mission is to search for three previous Echelon expeditions that went dark. But what you actually find is a slow build-up of madness and a highly kinetic combat loop that demands absolute perfection. Today, I am breaking down exactly why Saros is a game of incredible highs and frustrating lows, and why I absolutely love its combat mechanics but really hate the grueling structure that forces me through it.

--- THE AVERAGE CYCLE ---

When ready, you will venture forth from your home base into the land of Carcosa, following the footsteps of those who came before you. Your route will be fraught with danger every step of the way, filled with enemies who want to end you simply for being there. Scattered throughout, you will find Holo-Caches, essentially loot boxes, that will provide all you need to survive. Weapons, artifacts, materials, and healing options.

To increase your strength, you will raise three attributes by picking up found artifacts. Resilience, which governs overall health and defense; power, increasing power gun and shield strength, and drive, which determines how much Lucenite you find, the currency needed for upgrades at base and increases your proficiency level during a run. The higher your proficiency, the more capable your guns will be.

Eventually, you will not be able to move forward without activating the Eclipse, which turns the world around you and your enemies more aggressive and capable in fights. Suddenly, yellow projectiles will be brought into play, and any artifacts you find will be corrupt, turning them into a double-edged sword by providing both a benefit and a detriment, making them that much harder to pick up. At the end of every zone will be a tough boss. If you can manage to take them out, you can return home with pride, a bag full of Lucenite, and a portal to the next area. Or you’ll die, ending up back at base full of shame, half your Lucenite lost, and having to start over at your base attribute and proficiency level to try again.

--- A DANCE-LIKE COMBAT LOOP ---

You are constantly engaged in a high-energy back-and-forth dance in a game that relies heavily on color logic to dictate your movements. While all projectiles will hurt if they touch you, each color dictates the proper reaction. You dodge yellow projectiles that cause corruption, lowering your max health, avoid or parry the red ones, and actively hunt down the blue ones to absorb them. Soaking up that blue energy fills your power bar. Once filled, you can unleash devastating shots like giant explosions or constant laser beams.

You manage all of this while using the fantastic haptic feedback of the dual-stage triggers. You pull the left trigger halfway to a physical stop for your alt-fire, and press it fully to unleash your equipped power gun. With five main guns, each with three varieties and an alt-fire, and four arm-mounted power guns, you have a massive arsenal at your disposal. Firing the Smart Rifle, my favorite, and watching its split rounds home in on targets as the screen fills with projectiles is an absolute blast. You feel unstoppable, especially after learning enemies’ special attack patterns, so you know exactly what to do when they try to destroy you.

--- FRUSTRATING ROGUELIKE REPETITION ---

The roguelike repetition can quickly become frustrating, leading to many repeated playthroughs depending on your skill level. Losing long runs during a boss’s learning phase is a major annoyance, and the punishing level design makes it even worse. In chapter two, the game forced me to take two distinct branching cave paths just to unlock the boss room. Unlike the first chapter, unlocking the boss door did not provide a shortcut.

Every single time I died, I had to run those branches again. When I finally reached the boss the first time, I was already hurting pretty badly. It killed me very quickly before I could even learn its patterns or move sets. The only shortcut I eventually unlocked was activating the Eclipse early, which made the entire journey significantly more difficult. Suddenly, every single enemy could fire yellow projectiles and felt more aggressive, turning a simple run back to the boss into a brutal gauntlet. I realize being forced to start over again and again due to death is a roguelike function, but it was much more frustrating in some sections than others.

--- THE ARMORY AND THE CARCOSAN MODIFIER ---

Thankfully you have The Armory, a central hub for permanent character growth so every run doesn’t have to feel like a waste. Here, you spend the Lucenite and Halcyon currencies you gather during your runs, dropped by enemies and found in Holo-Caches. The Armory consists of branching trees moving upwards, unlocking as you open nodes with each section locked behind zone bosses. The upgrades are mostly stat-based, improving attributes like Resilience, Drive, and Power, with a few nodes used to boost your healing effectiveness or extend Lucenite duration on the ground.

The Carcosan Modifier is a difficulty gauge you can adjust from negative three to positive three. It is a big give and take. You equip helpful mods that push the needle negative, or harmful mods that push it positive, and you have to balance them to keep the needle within that specific window to activate them. I opted for harmful mods that increased my Lucenite loss on death and disabled Halcyon drops, meaning I rarely retained upgrade currency unless I beat the boss. But in exchange, I gained massive defensive and offensive buffs. It completely changed my experience. Instead of dying frequently, I could focus on exploring the dense environments and mastering the combat. I had the defense needed to learn the ins and outs of new enemies without the frustration of restarting consistently. Returning to that first boss with better stats turned the fight into an absolute cake walk.

--- A SLOW DRIP FEED STORY ---

Arjun’s history and the decisions that shaped him are the main draw, revealed through special cutscenes and conversations with his suit. The plot unfolds in a slow drip-feed, relying heavily on RNG hunting to find Databank audio logs, written notes, and conversations with people. Because every area’s layout is random for each run, some areas may have a note or log available, while the same areas may provide a new note on a consecutive run, requiring you to die and/or return frequently until the zone is cleaned out of notes. There is an indicator showing how many different notes are in a zone; if you keep an eye on it, you won’t keep hunting empty areas hoping for a note.

It never felt like a chore to find them, though. They do a fantastic job of building the world and detailing the slow build-up of madness that possessed the previous crews, and what they had gone through before my arrival. It is satisfying overall, even with a few unquestioned details lingering before you hunt for the post-credits true ending.

--- GOLDEN BULLET HELL VISUALS ---

The environments are smooth and clear, featuring high-quality character models across distinct biomes such as canyons, caves, and marshes. A dominant gold aesthetic coats the entire game. Even in dark, machinery-filled rooms lit by red emergency lights, that yellow aesthetic shines through brilliantly. When an Eclipse triggers and every machine-like monster starts firing, the bullet-hell peaks with projectile colors that are enchanting at times.

It looks great, and performance holds up perfectly without any frame drops or loading screens to ruin the flow. I encountered a single glitch where I fell through the floor during a boss fight, but a quick auto-reset fixed it immediately. By the time you reach the final area, the game throws significantly more environmental hazards and dense bullet-hell gauntlets at you, rewarding you with troves of loot, Lucenite, and Holo Caches for surviving. After the credits roll, there is no New Game Plus or daily challenge modes to keep you occupied. Instead, replayability is driven entirely by hunting down remaining Databank entries, cleaning up your trophy list, and testing different weapon loadouts to work toward the true ending path.

--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

There is light cursing present, though it is mellow. Combat is strictly gun-based, featuring no blood or dismemberment as you fight various machine-like monsters. Thematically, the game deals with a slow build-up of madness, possession, and team members harming each other. Visually, there is some disturbing imagery of statues looking like malformed humans, but there are no sudden jump scares or startling transitions to worry about.

--- RECOMMENDED? ---

If you are a fan of roguelikes, this is a must-buy. If not, you may still enjoy the combat. Learning enemies’ attack patterns and the back-and-forth dance of avoiding danger is incredibly rewarding. This is especially true after the Carcosian Modifier is unlocked, which makes it much easier to bypass the tedious roguelike side of things and focus on the action.

When I started in 2021, I decided to ditch traditional numbered scores. They just don’t capture the actual feel of adding a game to your collection. Instead, I rate games using the Shelf System.

Think of my game library like a well-stocked cabinet. Here is how to read the rankings before you take a pour:

• Special Reserve: Grade A, top-tier gaming. This is the absolute best of the best—the kind of immersive, masterpiece experience you could drown yourself in for hundreds of hours and be perfectly happy. A definitive must-play.

• Top Shelf: Now this is some good stuff. Smooth mechanics, engaging gameplay, and an experience that keeps you coming back for more and more. These titles are highly recommended and absolutely worth full price.

• Mid Shelf: Not the greatest of all time, but far from the worst. A solid, middle-of-the-road experience. It’s good enough to keep installed for a while and definitely worth your time if you catch it on a sale or already love the genre.

• Bottom Shelf: A bit of a cheap taste. It’s not the absolute worst, and it might be good enough to try if you can get it for free or dirt cheap, but it’s definitely not an experience you’ll keep coming back to.

Navigating the Site

To make finding your next game as easy as possible, I’ve organized the site so you can quickly find what you are looking for. Just use the drop-down menus at the top of the page:

• Shelves: Want to skip straight to the top-tier recommendations or see what to avoid? Browse my entire backlog of reviews sorted directly by their Shelf System ratings.

• Genres: Craving a specific type of game? Here you can filter reviews by category, whether you’re looking for a massive RPG, a fast-paced shooter, or something in between.

• 5/5: Sometimes a game might not hit “Special Reserve” overall, but it absolutely nails a specific element. This tab highlights games that scored a perfect 5/5 in an individual category, like phenomenal storytelling, breathtaking graphics, or incredibly tight gameplay mechanics.

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Grab a glass, browse the shelves, and find your next favorite game!

Title: Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss

Release: April 16, 2026

Platform: PC PS5 Xbox Series X|S

Developer: Big Bad Wolf

Publisher: Nacon

Genre: Narrative Investigation Action-Adventure Horror

ESRB: Mature 17+

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 10 Hours

--- A SLOW SLOG BENEATH THE SURFACE ---

If you jump into Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss expecting to be terrified by intense Lovecraftian horror, you will be disappointed. I had to learn this firsthand. I went in wanting a scary, gripping experience. But what I was met with was a slow slog. The game is a first-person Lovecraftian story-driven investigation game, and it completely misses the mark on keeping you engaged. You play as Noah, an agent investigating occult cases alongside his partner Elsa.

The prologue actually sets up a decent mystery. You explore the house of a missing fellow agent named Mei. This quickly spirals out of control when you discover a portal to another dimension. You find Mei, but she has completely lost her mind and attempts to kill you both. Noah barely escapes, but Elsa is left behind in the abyss. It sounds like a great hook. But then the game jumps forward eight months, and everything grinds to an agonizing halt.

Noah tracks a lead to an underwater drilling facility that supposedly went dormant. Here, you find evidence of the previous crew exploring the supernatural and tracking their descent into madness as they attempted to awaken the ancient one. It sounds fascinating on paper. However, the plot is extremely heavy and ultimately boring. It is a slow-paced game focused entirely on investigations, finding clues, and solving puzzles. There is absolutely no combat to break up the pacing. The story definitively concludes, but it ultimately feels like a bust. The pacing is agonizingly slow, and the heavy mature themes just bog down the experience instead of elevating the tension.

--- THE VAULT OF TEDIOUS DEDUCTIONS ---

The core gameplay loop centers around a mechanic called The Vault. This is a special space inside Noah’s AI companion, Key. All discovered clues go here. You are supposed to move them around, connect them with drawn lines, and deduce answers to move forward. But the initial tutorial completely fails to explain how this actually works. It left me confused for the first few hours of the game. The tutorial explained I could deduce clues together by merging them in a way. The way it was brought up I thought it would be more obvious to me when I could merge clues, almost like a mini-game.

However, the deduction connection was much more manual. The questions that needed to be deduced would appear as a purple clue with a line to an empty space. I was supposed to place the relevant clue in that space to deduce the answer for the question being asked. This game requires copious amounts of reading to properly get through. Chapters are flooded with clues like notes from old expeditions, tablets, and random items. Far too many clues were fluff that could be ignored, but you wouldn’t know it until you read it all.

For want-to-be detectives, this would be a great game. But for me, it was tedious and boring. Some deductions made sense to me, and it felt nice to figure them out. But a lot of them I would brute force my way through, testing all of the relevant clues in the empty space until one answered the question, moving the game forward. It worked, but it was not enjoyable.

--- A CLEVER SONAR SYSTEM BURIED IN CLUNK ---

The one saving grace of the gameplay is the Sonar system. It was a highly enjoyable mechanic that actually made me feel smart. Upon discovering an object, you deduce its material makeup, then tune your sonar to scan the environment for matching materials to find new clues. At first I thought I could scan for up to three things at once. But then nothing was showing up when I scanned, even though I knew the material I was scanning for was right in front of me. It wasn’t until later I realized I was scanning for things with that particular makeup.

For instance, there was a flooded room that the system couldn’t pump out due to clogged pipes. I could scan the pipe material, which was titanium, and follow the lines, but I could never see anything wrong. It wasn’t until I found an old pipe with some otherworldly mushroom clogging it up that someone had tried to clean that I realized the solution. I needed to scan for titanium and the otherworldly mushroom together to identify the clogged pipes I needed to replace. Figuring that out felt genuinely rewarding.

While the sonar itself is free to use, analyzing the clues you find costs energy, and managing that energy introduces a whole new set of problems. Energy lycium is sparsely found throughout the facility. To recover energy, you have to find special mushrooms, absorb them into a vial, and inject them directly into Noah’s forearm. I didn’t have a problem shooting up the mushrooms, as that was a necessary act for energy. But when I didn’t have any energy, I opted out of analyzing clues. However, some had to be analyzed to move forward, so I took a corruption hit a couple of times.

Corruption is a slow spreading affliction that destroys the evolutions you equip to Key. These evolutions act as mods for your AI companion that grant helpful buffs, like expanding your sonar range or refunding spent energy. When corruption takes over, you lose those benefits entirely. There was a warning at the start of the game explaining corruption is always present and growing, and it dictates the choices available at the end of the game. I did end up using the game settings to mitigate some of this. I asked Key for hints on specific clues. I could ask for three hints per important clue, each hint giving more information until the final one told me exactly what I needed to do. Most of the time that was very helpful to move forward, though sometimes it did create a lot more questions and problems for me.

--- THE MISERY OF CHAPTER FIVE ---

Then there is Chapter 5. I absolutely hated Chapter 5. It features an incredibly punishing section that completely abandons the slow investigation for a frustrating trial-and-error loop. It wasn’t a chase sequence, just slow exploration. There was a milky substance produced by an unknown entity that I had to walk over to cross chasms. This material would only show right in front of my feet as I moved. I could only move a couple inches at a time to make sure I was still on the right path, making progression very slow.

To make matters worse, there was a worm monster that would start to stalk me while on these invisible bridges. If I lingered too long, a chest-bursting worm would rip through me, causing me to start over right before the bridges. It was a frustrating setup that killed me a lot. I would find a solid spot and start jumping across hoping to find another solid spot and get through that section before the worm got me. I fell a lot during this trial and error, and the worm got me a couple times as well. There may have been a way to see the bridges with the sonar, but I never figured it out. It was a miserable experience.

--- ATMOSPHERIC VISUALS AND EMPTY SOUNDSCAPES ---

Visually, the game does have some merits to appreciate. The graphics aren’t terrible, and the different sections of the underwater facility feel visually unique. The atmosphere gets notably darker and more pressing the deeper you progress into the game. The character models are also surprisingly good. The facial expressions are impressive. While they are not hyper-realistic, the characters feel alive and expressive, and they are not stiff at all.

Sadly, the audio design completely drops the ball. It is very forgettable. Music is only present occasionally. The soundscape mostly consists of the repetitive thump thump thump of the protagonist’s boots walking around the empty metal hallways. This lack of sound design severely hurts the tension.

--- A LACKLUSTER RUNTIME ---

As for the length, my first playthrough took around nine hours to beat. But honestly, the only reason I finished was to review it. I would have quit in the first few hours otherwise. It is long-winded and too complicated. If you know the puzzle solutions and which clues to ignore, a second playthrough could be blitzed in about four to five hours. But the replayability is incredibly low. It is doubtful you would ever want to play it again once you roll the credits.

--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

Parents should know that this game contains extremely heavy and mature themes that are likely too boring or complex for children to understand or enjoy watching. There is a general presence of blood and violence throughout the adventure. In the prologue, a former ally loses her mind and attempts to murder the protagonist and his partner. There is also a severe, on-screen instance of a character taking their own life. You will hear quite a few curse words while exploring. Finally, there is a recurring disturbing action where the main character must extract mushroom essence into a vial and inject it directly into his forearm to regain energy. There are no jumpscares, but the game discusses ritual sacrifice and self-harm.

--- CONCLUSION ---

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is a game that demands an incredible amount of patience for very little payoff. Ultimately, this game demands focus that feels unrewarded. The premise of an occult underwater investigation is fantastic, and the sonar mechanics provide brief moments of genuine satisfaction. But the tedious clue management, the confusing menus, and the absolute misery of the invisible bridges overshadow the few bright spots. It is a slow, frustrating descent into madness, but sadly, not the fun kind.

Title: Pragmata

Release: April 17, 2026

Platform: PC PS5 Xbox Series X|S Nintendo Switch 2

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre: Action-adventure

ESRB: T

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 15 Hours

--- A JUGGLING ACT OF COMBAT AND HACKING ---

Combat is where Pragmata truly carves out its own distinct identity. It throws a lot at you all at once. Nearly every fight felt the exact same, save for some unique boss encounters and the minor differences of enemies requiring different fighting tactics. But that loop is surprisingly well done. A fight starts with a bot appearing and moving closer, ready to attack. Initially, these robots are closed up tight, and Hugh’s bullets do minimal damage against their armor. In order to actually do decent damage, Diana must open the bots by hacking them. Once they are exposed, Hugh can shred their health, and Diana can continue hacking to cause even more damage with each successful breach.

Here is how that actually plays out in your hands. When Hugh aims his gun at an enemy, the hacking grid immediately appears on screen. Inside is a node I can move around using the face buttons of the controller, in my case XYBA. The ultimate goal is to hit the green node within the grid. But getting there is a high-speed puzzle. I can pass through blue power nodes that increase the damage of the hack, or hit yellow nodes appearing from special hacks I keep in my inventory, causing confusion or other status effects on a successful breach. And there are sometimes red nodes that will cause the hack to fail entirely, forcing me to start over.

While I am solving this grid on the right side of the controller, I can use all the other buttons to move Hugh and shoot at the exact same time. It demands easy multitasking. If the enemy gets dangerously close, I can simply stop aiming and get away quickly. This forces the grid to close. However, if I didn’t take any damage during my escape, I can pick up right where I left off the next time I aim.

This intuitive multitasking makes the combat flow beautifully. Despite looking insanely complex, it felt natural and simple to execute. It falls just short of becoming too repetitive because the grid puzzles evolve, growing from simple three-by-three squares to massive ten-by-ten labyrinths. You have to train your brain to split its focus. Sliding that node around the grid while a massive robotic monstrosity bears down on you creates incredible tension. Deciding whether to risk hitting a blue power node for extra damage or taking the safe route to the green node is a constant split-second gamble. Hitting a yellow node and watching the enemy bot get confused and stagger gives you a massive adrenaline rush.

--- EXPLORING THE LUNAR SURFACE —

When you aren’t fighting for your life, the exploration takes over. The visual quality of the graphics is high. The lunar surface is highly detailed and incredibly enjoyable to explore. They made excellent use of light and color, and the character models look very smooth. The UI is also very clean. It effectively shows necessary info like your health and the hacking grids while leaving plenty of screen real estate to watch for incoming dangers.

Pragmata also sprinkles in some heavy Metroidvania elements. It wasn’t necessary to backtrack if you wanted to just beat the game. You can push straight through the story in about ten hours. But backtracking rewarded a plethora of tokens and upgrade materials. I didn’t start backtracking until nearly the end of the game. When I finally did, I found out I could actually find upgrades to Hugh’s healing containers, allowing me to carry more before running out.

Exploration is directly tied to your power increases. Upgrading your gear makes a tangible difference in your combat viability. It significantly reduces the tedium of fighting the tougher MK II versions of the robots. I loved learning my enemies so I could dispatch them quickly. The difficulty scaling is perfectly tuned. I died a couple times, but rarely to repeat enemies. It was always just challenging enough to keep moving forward, and never was I held back for long during difficult sections.

And this game respects your time. A semi-completionist run will take you approximately fifteen hours. That breaks down to about ten hours for the main plot and five hours dedicated to backtracking for upgrades. But the longevity stretches far beyond the credits rolling. There is plenty to do and find even after the main campaign ends. If you want to see everything and complete the game one hundred percent, you could easily get twenty plus hours out of this experience. The post-game content unlocks a brand new difficulty setting, dropping extra content including new outfits and highly unique weapons and mods. These late-game additions actually introduce brand new playstyles, giving you a great reason to jump back in and test your mastery of the dual-control combat.

--- BINGO, MEMORIES, AND THE SHELTER ---

To break up the flashy violence of the combat loop, you spend a lot of downtime in The Shelter. This is your main hub. It features the training facility and your suit upgrades, but the social systems are what truly make it special. When back in the Shelter, I could gift Diana Real Earth Memories, or R.E.M.s for short. Once gifted, these items would be printed into a special area of the shelter for Diana to play with or observe.

After handing over so many R.E.M.s, Diana would reward me with hand-drawn pictures. They provide a charming contrast to the cold sci-fi setting. They are very cute and totally fridge-worthy, obviously drawn by a young child. They are amazing, that is, if you can get past the idea that they are pictures created by an AI. It is a funny bit of irony in a game centered around artificial intelligence going rogue.

The rewards don’t stop at crayon drawings. For every R.E.M. you gift, you receive one cabin coin. These coins are used for the bingo game run by Cabin, a helpful robot who takes care of the Shelter. The bingo cards gave small rewards for every uncovered square and even greater gifts for multiple bingos or a whole blackout. These gifts were incredibly useful. You unlock special notes about the old employees of the Cradle, lore about the different robot enemies, mods, guns, new hacks, and different outfits for Hugh and Diana.

--- CAN THE KIDS WATCH? ---

This is a pretty safe one to watch with the kids if the gun fights are alright. The language is clean and you won’t find any profanity in the character dialogue or the radio transmissions. There is absolutely no blood, no dismemberment, and no scary scenes or organic monsters jumping out from the dark. The action strictly features copious amounts of flashy violence toward robots using various firearms. The core themes focus heavily on survival, isolation, and a highly positive, protective bond between an adult and a child-like companion.

--- A LUNAR SUCCESS ---

Pragmata is a massive surprise. It takes a bunch of distinct ideas and smashes them together into something that feels entirely fresh. The combat could have easily devolved into a frustrating mess. Instead, it offers a deeply satisfying rhythm that rewards quick thinking and steady hands. The world is beautiful to look at, and the loop of fighting, exploring, and returning to The Shelter to play bingo keeps you hooked for hours.

Title: Narin: The Orange Room

Release: April 7, 2026

Platform: PC

Developer: RedSensationGames

Publisher: Urnique Studio Rising Tide

Genre: Adventure Indie Horror

ESRB: N/A

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 6 Hours

Narin: The Orange Room initially presents itself as a lighthearted indie adventure. You play as Narin, a young girl searching for her missing sister within her school. The first hour suggests a game aimed at a younger audience, featuring a friendly talking cat and puzzles that require very little mental heavy lifting. It establishes a familiar loop of exploration and basic interaction that feels safe and almost whimsical. This initial impression is deceptive, as the game eventually trades this safety for something much more unsettling.

This innocent facade begins to crack as you delve deeper into the story. What starts as a simple search through a school building evolves into a much more intense and mature experience. The game shifts its tone significantly, introducing imagery and themes that stand in stark contrast to the bright anime art style and the early introduction of a feline companion. This transition defines the core experience, moving from a standard mystery into something that feels like a simplified version of classic psychological horror. It uses the school setting to ground the player before pulling the rug out from under them with increasingly dark story beats.

The game is a relatively short experience, clocking in at roughly five and a half hours from start to finish. During this time, the gameplay remains consistently linear, guiding you through a series of specific encounters and environments. While the initial learning curve is almost nonexistent due to the simplicity of the early tasks, the shifting atmosphere provides the primary motivation to see the journey through to its end. The pacing is quick enough that you never feel bogged down, but the mechanics’ lack of complexity means the heavy lifting is done almost entirely by the atmosphere and the unfolding mystery.

--- THE STRUCTURE OF THE TWILIGHT DIMENSION ---

The gameplay is structured over multiple days, with each new day shifting the focus to a different part of the school and introducing fresh obstacles. This format lets the game gradually build tension without overwhelming the player early on. In the beginning, the Twilight Dimension feels like a haunted space filled with vague, ghostly shapes that you simply need to avoid by keeping your distance. These early segments are more about atmosphere and learning the layout than about high-stakes survival. The ghosts serve as a baseline threat, teaching you to respect enemy sight lines.

As the days progress, the nature of the threats shifts from amorphous ghosts to more distinct, predatory figures. These primary antagonists are tethered to specific sections of the school, serving as the main obstacle for that portion of the journey. These stalkers have unique visual profiles and behaviors that demand a more careful approach to navigation. By rotating these encounters, the game keeps exploration from feeling too repetitive, even if the core mechanics of sneaking remain the same. The shift from generic ghosts to specific, identifiable threats marks the point where the game starts to feel like a more serious horror title.

The transition between these days also marks a shift in how you interact with the environment. Early on, the school is relatively open, but as the danger escalates, you are forced into tighter corridors and more claustrophobic spaces. This progression mirrors the story’s descent from a simple missing-person search to something far more psychological. The game signals when a new threat is active, ensuring you never feel completely blindsided by a change in enemy behavior. It creates a rhythm of exploration followed by high-tension evasion that carries the experience through its short runtime.

--- STEALTH AND NAVIGATION MECHANICS ---

The stealth system in Narin: The Orange Room is functional but lacks depth. Most encounters are resolved by staying crouched and maintaining a physical barrier between yourself and the enemy. If an enemy is not facing you, you can walk normally, but running is almost always a mistake because of the noise it generates. There was one instance where I was caught while hiding under a desk, suggesting that the line-of-sight mechanics can be a bit unpredictable. However, for most of the game, the stealth feels like a secondary layer to exploration rather than a complex system to master.

The consequences of being caught are relatively light. If an enemy grabs you, it results in an immediate game over, but the checkpoint system is very forgiving. You are usually placed right outside the room where you were caught, allowing you to jump right back into the action without losing much progress. This reduces much of the potential frustration, but it also lowers the overall tension. You never truly fear the enemies because you know a mistake only costs a few seconds. This makes the horror feel more like a series of puzzles to solve rather than a life-or-death struggle.

Navigation is handled without a map, which might sound daunting in a school setting, but the game is designed to keep you from getting lost. The areas are relatively small, and the path forward is usually quite obvious. Narin herself provides constant narration that tells you exactly where to go and what needs to be done. While this makes the game accessible, it also removes any sense of discovery or player agency. I only found myself turned around once during the entire five-hour run, and it took very little effort to find the correct path again. The school layout is logical, and the game rarely forces you into complex backtracking.

--- THE VITAL ROLE OF THE LAMP ---

Your primary tool for navigating the darkness is a lamp. It helps you see in the darker corners of the Twilight Dimension and clear specific obstacles like smoke or roots. It is a vital mechanical tool, but it does not require resource management. There are no batteries to find or oil levels to monitor. You simply turn it on when needed and use it to progress along the linear path the developers have laid out. This simplifies the experience and keeps the focus on the story rather than the logistics of survival.

The lamp serves as both a literal light in the dark and a means of interacting with the environment. In certain sections, the darkness is so thick that you cannot see more than a few feet ahead without it. While this adds to the atmosphere, the lack of a resource limit means you never have to make tough choices about when to use your light. It functions more like a key for specific doors than a survival tool. Narin will often remind you to use the lamp even when the solution is obvious, reinforcing the feeling that the game is guiding you along a preset path.

Despite its simplicity, the lamp provides some of the game’s most striking visual moments. Seeing the light cut through the oppressive shadows of the Twilight Dimension creates a strong sense of atmosphere. It highlights the details of the twisted school architecture and makes the transition into darker areas feel more impactful. It is a constant presence, and while it doesn’t add much challenge, it is an essential part of the game’s identity as a school horror title. The interplay between the small circle of light and the surrounding darkness is where the game is most effective at building dread.

--- PUZZLES AND ENVIRONMENTAL INTERACTION ---

The puzzles in this game are generally very easy to solve. Most involve finding a key item or a code to unlock a lock, with the solution usually nearby. The game does a lot of the work for you, often repeating directions or reminders about how to use a tool. Narin frequently comments on how she can use her lamp to clear an obstacle, even after you have already done it several times. This hand-holding persists throughout the entire experience, which can be frustrating if you are looking for a challenge. It feels like the developers were afraid the player might get stuck for even a moment.

There are a few brighter spots where the puzzles require a bit more engagement. These involve reading notes left in the environment and exploring a specific room to piece together clues. These moments were a welcome change of pace from the standard fetch tasks that make up the rest of the game. Unfortunately, these more complex riddles are the exception rather than the rule. Everything you need to solve a puzzle is readily available, and there was never a point when I felt the need to take notes or think critically about the environment. The lack of complexity makes the gameplay feel like a vehicle for the plot.

The school itself serves more as a backdrop for the story than as a place full of lore to discover. While there is a section where the environment shifts to resemble a much older school, the game never explicitly explains why this change occurs. This lack of detail forces the player to make assumptions about the history of the Twilight Dimension. The school layout is easy to learn, but it lacks the fine details that would make it feel like a lived-in space with its own history. It is a series of rooms to be cleared rather than a cohesive world to be explored.

--- VISUALS AND THE ATMOSPHERIC SHIFT ---

Visually, the game uses an anime-inspired art style for both the characters and the environments. The character portraits that appear during dialogue are well-drawn and help convey the cast’s emotions. The 3D environments are simple but effective at creating an oppressive atmosphere once you enter the Twilight Dimension. The transition from the normal school to the twisted version is handled primarily through lighting changes, forcing you to rely on your lamp to see into the corners of the rooms. The contrast between the bright, clean school at the start and the decayed version in the Twilight Dimension is stark.

The most striking aspect of the visuals is the shift toward more mature, graphic imagery as the story progresses. While the early hours are clean and safe, the later stages of the game introduce disturbing still frames that depict heavy themes. These images are quite graphic and feel like they belong in a much darker game than the intro suggests. This shift creates a sense of dread that is more effective than the scattered jump scares found throughout the school. The jump scares themselves are often cheap and ineffective, but the static imagery used during major plot points carries a lot of weight.

The enemies you encounter share this design philosophy. The ghosts are simple black shapes, while the more distinct stalkers have unsettling features that make them stand out. The Janitor is a standout design, featuring a large human frame with multiple eyes plastered across its head. It is creepy and unsettling without being overly grotesque. Similarly, the Scissors Girl uses her four arms and high-pitched screeching to create a memorable presence. Their designs are effective because they fit the anime aesthetic while still feeling off-putting in the game’s lighting.

--- AUDIO AND VOICE ACTING ---

The audio design is minimalist, which helps build a sense of isolation. Most of your time is spent in silence, punctuated only by the sounds of your own footsteps or the distinct noises made by the enemies. This silence makes the sudden screech of a monster or the heavy thumping of the Janitor’s footsteps feel even more impactful. However, the voice acting is a much more inconsistent element of the presentation. The game features English voice acting for Narin, the only voiced character, but the performance is severely lacking.

The English voice lines are delivered with very little emotion or life, making it hard to care about Narin’s plight. I found the performance so distracting that I eventually turned it off. I tried the Thai voice track for a moment, and even though I didn’t understand the language, the delivery felt much more authentic. The Thai voice actress conveyed the fear and desperation that Narin was supposed to feel. It added a level of depth to the character that was completely missing from the English version. Hearing the emotion in her voice made the more intense scenes feel more grounded.

The game’s origins as a Thai indie project are very apparent throughout the experience. As someone who is not Thai, I felt that a significant amount of the cultural context or specific storytelling nuances might have been lost in translation. This likely accounts for the odd phrasing and the sense that some plot points lacked their intended weight. It creates a barrier that made it difficult for me to connect with the core emotions being portrayed. Between the lackluster English acting and these translation quirks, the gap between the developers’ intent and the final English product is noticeable.

--- THE ROLE OF COMPANIONS AND NPCS ---

The Black Cat that accompanies Narin is almost entirely a plot device. While it follows you on screen and occasionally guides you toward an objective, it plays no active role in gameplay. You cannot control it, and it does not help you solve puzzles or avoid enemies in any meaningful way. Its primary purpose is to provide exposition and explain the mechanics of the Twilight Dimension to Narin. It serves as a bridge between the player and the world, but it feels like a missed opportunity for more engaging gameplay interactions. The cat acts more like a moving waypoint than a companion.

You also encounter other children who have found their way into the Twilight Dimension. These characters do not offer side quests or much in the way of interactive gameplay. Instead, they are placed in the world to move the story forward and raise more questions for the player to ponder. They appear mostly in the visual novel segments, providing context for the missing students and the general danger of the school. Like the cat, they are tools for the story rather than actors in the world. Their presence helps flesh out the situation, but they feel very static within the 3D environment.

The visual novel aspects of the game take up a significant portion of the runtime. When major story points occur, the game often switches to still frames with text describing the scenes and interactions. This storytelling style is effective for an indie budget, but it can feel a bit disjointed when paired with the 3D exploration. These segments are where the character-driven writing is most prominent, focusing on the emotional weight of Narin’s search for her sister.

--- A LACK OF SATISFYING RESOLUTION ---

As the story reaches its conclusion, it takes several turns that raise more questions than they answer. The plot eventually piqued my interest after a slow start, but the final moments were deeply unsatisfying. The game essentially stops, leaving many of the core mysteries of the school and the Twilight Dimension entirely unresolved. It feels as though the developers simply ran out of room to explain the internal logic of the world they created. Rather than a cohesive finale, the experience just ends with a heavy sense of confusion.

The title itself, The Orange Room, remains a bit of a mystery by the time the credits roll. The name’s significance may be tied to a cultural reference or a translation detail that does not translate well for an international audience. Regardless of the reason, the lack of a clear explanation for the game’s namesake adds to the general sense of frustration at the end of the journey. The story focuses heavily on emotional themes, but it fails to provide the concrete answers needed to make the mystery feel worthwhile. You are left trying to connect dots the game never actually draws.

This lack of resolution is the game’s biggest hurdle. You spend five hours navigating a creepy school and confronting intense imagery, only to be met with a conclusion that feels entirely unfinished. It creates a sense of disappointment that overshadows the game’s interesting world-building and the Silent Hill Lite atmosphere it works so hard to establish. While the journey has its moments of tension and emotional impact, the destination leaves much to be desired because it fails to tie its many threads together in a meaningful way.

--- FINAL VERDICT ON THE ORANGE ROOM ---

Narin: The Orange Room is a game of sharp contrasts. It transitions from a safe, almost juvenile adventure to a heavy, mature horror experience with surprising effectiveness. The multi-day structure provides a clear progression of enemy types, and the atmosphere of the Twilight Dimension remains consistently eerie. However, the game is held back by overly simplistic puzzles and a constant stream of hand-holding that keeps the player from ever feeling truly challenged or clever.

The technical performance is solid, with very few bugs or issues during the playthrough. While the English voice acting and translation are weak points, they are balanced by the strong anime art style and the unsettling design of the main antagonists. The game succeeds as a Silent Hill Lite experience for those who want an emotional, atmospheric horror story without complex combat. It captures a distinctive school-horror vibe, even if the writing stumbles in the final act.

Ultimately, whether you enjoy this game depends on your tolerance for a linear, guided experience and a story that leaves you with a significant sense of disappointment. It is a competent indie effort that showcases some great atmospheric ideas, but it falls short of delivering a cohesive, clear finale. If you are looking for a short, creepy journey through a haunted school and don’t mind a lack of closure, Narin: The Orange Room is worth a look, but it leaves far too many questions on the table.

Title: Project Songbird

Release: March 26, 2026

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S

Developer: FYRE Games, Conner Rush

Publisher: FYRE Games

Genre: Adventure Indie

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 6 Hours

Project Songbird is a psychological horror indie game that puts you in the shoes of Dakota, an established musician struggling to find her motivation. Following a tragic event, she loses the drive to create the music her fanbase expects. Her manager convinces her to pack up her gear and head to a remote cabin in the woods to find inspiration. The game immediately sets a heavy tone. You spend the initial stages learning the basic controls while Dakota tries to record the sounds of nature for her new demo, a small mechanic that includes a dedicated achievement.

The atmosphere of the game quickly shifts from a peaceful retreat to a deeply disturbing experience. Dakota is constantly haunted by the image of a large red door in her mind. This visual obsession spills into the dark woods surrounding the cabin, transforming a simple trip for inspiration into a terrifying ordeal. The learning curve emphasizes familiarizing yourself with basic survival tools and sneaking past threats instead of engaging in intense combat or complicated action scenes.

During a five-and-a-half-hour playthrough, the game reveals itself as a powerful story about the creative process. It emphasizes the immense pressure artists face from managers and audiences alike. The main conflict centers on the struggle between making popular art that earns money and creating what the artist truly wants to produce, even if it attracts negativity from others.

--- VISUALS AND WORLD EXPLORATION ---

The graphics in Project Songbird are quite similar to those in the crowded indie horror market. While the design isn’t top-tier, the visuals are clear and fully legible. You won’t struggle to decipher grainy textures or poorly rendered objects. The game features a small, linear world with simple environments. Since the game is relatively short, it offers only a few distinct locations to explore. Your time will be spent walking down forest paths, exploring a church, investigating an old mine, and navigating a few areas heavily influenced by horror.

Darkness is a key element in the level design. Many areas are completely pitch black, and you depend on a flashlight with a very limited battery supply. Running out of power creates some of the most intense moments in the game. When the flashlight dies in a dark room, your only backup is a camera flash. Pressing the camera gives a quick burst of light to help you find your way. The scariest part of exploring these dark environments is not being able to see the monsters around you. You often have to rely on the sounds of their pained, struggling breaths to locate them in the darkness.

--- COMBAT AND SURVIVAL MECHANICS ---

Combat is minimal and mainly serves as a way to keep you engaged rather than being a core part of the game. Most of your time is spent sneaking past enemies and solving puzzles. Fights are sometimes unavoidable, so you need to make sure your gear is prepared for those moments.

You have access to three weapons throughout the game. Ammo for your firearms is extremely limited, making every missed shot costly. Your only melee weapon is an axe, which can break during combat. To keep yourself armed, you must scavenge the environment for scrap. You take this scrap to workbenches scattered around the map to repair the broken axe. You can also use the scrap to upgrade your guns’ attack damage and reload speed. These upgrades can only be applied once per weapon, meaning there is no system for maxing out a power level to become unstoppable. The scarcity of batteries and ammo keeps the game a constant resource struggle, forcing you to carefully consider every encounter.

--- SOUND DESIGN AND THE RED LIGHT GREEN LIGHT MONSTER ---

The overall audio design only occasionally enhances the gameplay, but the developers used sound to brilliant effect for specific encounters. Sometimes, Dakota experiences moments where her head is filled with frantic, overlapping voices. This creates an overwhelming feeling of panic and forces you to figure out how to escape the area as quickly as possible.

The absolute standout feature of the game is a particular enemy I call the Red Light Green Light monster. This creature only moves toward you when you’re not looking at it. Each time it moves, it breathes loudly and quickly in and out. This breathing is paired with a rising Shepard tone, an auditory illusion that sounds like it’s constantly getting higher in pitch. This combination of sounds always sent a chill up my spine and caused massive tension.

The game forces you to interact with this monster during various puzzles. You might need to turn your back on it to play a piano or turn a valve. After a few seconds of looking away, the monster starts making its signature noises and begins moving closer. The sound gets louder with each passing second, forcing you to act quickly or die. Even if you try walking backward to keep your eyes on it, turning a corner breaks your line of sight. The moment you lose sight of it, the monster rushes to that corner until you can see it again. It remains an unsettling experience from start to finish. I never got used to the anxiety it caused during my entire playthrough.

--- PUZZLE SOLVING AND PC PERFORMANCE ---

The gameplay loop mainly involves solving puzzles to advance through the linear environments. These puzzles require some thinking, but they are generally well designed and not excessively difficult. The only time I struggled was when I didn’t find a crucial piece of information hidden nearby. The game expects you to explore your surroundings thoroughly to find the clues needed to progress.

I played Project Songbird on PC and experienced a very stable run. I did not encounter any major performance drops or constant glitches. The game ran smoothly, with the only visual issues being the intentional distortions related to the horror elements. I did face one significant bug where I fell off the map and had to completely restart the game. Interestingly, when I reloaded my save file, the puzzle I was working on was already solved. It’s very likely that the bug prevented the puzzle solution from triggering properly and then caused me to fall out of bounds. Aside from that single map glitch, the technical performance was solid.

--- A STORY OF ARTISTIC INTEGRITY ---

The plot unfolds through scattered snippets of dialogue, visual cues, and audio signals. The game demands you to focus on small details to grasp the full story. During my playthrough, I eventually noticed a link between certain environmental sounds and the trauma Dakota is experiencing. The story gradually develops over five hours of gameplay until everything comes to a head.

The climax of the game reveals many mysteries, including the importance of the big red door. The final parts felt a bit long while trying to emphasize the main message, but I never lost interest during the reveal. The game deeply explores the struggles of an artist pouring their soul out. It shows the painful reality of the creative process, which is often fraught with negativity from the outside world. The game perfectly depicts the difficult balance creators face between making something popular that earns money and producing a piece of art they genuinely believe in. I felt a strong connection to this tragic story and its deeper meanings.

--- WRAPPING UP THE EXPERIENCE ---

Project Songbird successfully delivers a powerful message about the cost of creative compromise. The gameplay loop of sneaking, managing limited resources, and solving puzzles can feel repetitive at times, but it effectively reinforces the game’s stressful tone. The developer clearly put a lot of thought into the psychological themes and the unique mechanics of the Red Light Green Light monster. While the graphics are typical for the genre and the ending drags a bit, the five and a half hours spent exploring Dakota’s mind are well worth it. You come away with a deep appreciation for the struggles artists face behind closed doors, making it an easy recommendation for fans of story-driven horror.

If you jump into Crimson Desert expecting to be blown away by an engaging, story-driven fantasy adventure that guides you through a vast world, you’ll likely be disappointed. I had to learn this firsthand. There is a main story to follow, and it’s smart to stick with it early on since it unlocks many mechanics and tutorials to help you understand the game. However, the story itself is difficult to follow, filled with strange elements like “Gods” guiding you and bizarre situations that the main character just kind of rolls with.

To truly enjoy Crimson Desert, you need to adjust your expectations. Think of it as an action sandbox, and your enjoyment won’t be as limited. You’re dropped into this world to set your own goals. I used to believe a true sandbox required heavy customization, but aside from what you or your mount wear, customization is surprisingly minimal here. Instead, the sandbox aspect comes from simply choosing a direction and exploring what you can discover.

--- A WORLD BUILT ON UNPRECEDENTED SCALE ---

The size of this game is incredible. I’ve played just over 30 hours and still feel like I haven’t uncovered much. You can always skip the confusing main story and explore instead. There are treasures to find, fast travel points to unlock, mounts to tame, and villages filled with bandits to clear out.

The size of the map is hard to fully grasp. I started exploring, and after an hour of walking and climbing, I had only made it maybe a third of the way across the map. It is vast, and the things you stumble upon can be incredibly unexpected. While exploring, I discovered a whole area completely engulfed in a battle between orcs and robots. It was strange and lacked much explanation, but I just had to accept it and enjoy the chaos. Moments like these make creating your own goals so fulfilling.

--- QUANTITY OVER QUALITY: VISUALS AND PERFORMANCE ---

When you have a world this vast, compromises are inevitable, and in Crimson Desert, it’s obvious the developers prioritized quantity over quality. The large world looks stunning from afar, but upon closer inspection of individual objects, that beauty diminishes. Almost everything lacks fine details, and the character models themselves appear rough rather than polished and smooth.

There are some annoying lighting issues. Sometimes areas are too dark when exploring, or the bright sun blinds you for too long after leaving a building. However, this visual inconvenience is actually a blessing in disguise because the game runs smoothly. If there were frame drops, T-poses, or major visual bugs, it would be a terrible experience. But since the performance is steady, I can easily overlook the lack of fine detail and spend hours enjoying the game.

--- UNINTUITIVE COMBAT AND CONTROLS ---

Combat is where Crimson Desert becomes highly divisive. It feels like the developers threw out the established playbook for action game controls and went entirely in their own direction. It’s unintuitive. For instance, heavy and light attacks are mapped to the right trigger and right bumper. Trying to string together combos that involve pressing both buttons simultaneously feels incredibly cumbersome in the middle of a frantic fight.

Then there is the targeting system. There is a “light” targeting system designed to keep you facing enemies, but the combat is loose enough that it’s very easy to start swinging, completely miss your target, and just keep going past them. Worse still, the block button doubles as a temporary lock-on button. Trying to execute a precision parry or block can violently whip your camera around to look somewhere completely different. You can use a hard lock-on, but it doesn’t automatically snap to the next target when an enemy dies, forcing you to manually re-engage every time.

Despite all this, most combat situations don’t end in defeat unless you are utterly overwhelmed by sheer numbers. You are incredibly powerful and possess a lot of AoE attacks that can quickly dispatch groups. The real challenge comes from Boss enemies, who attack fast and hit hard, requiring good timing for parries and dodges. However, once you gain experience and fill out your skill trees, you can almost get through any combat situation by button mashing.

--- A BRILLIANT (BUT FLAWED) CHARACTER SYSTEM ---

One of the neatest mechanics in the game is how you learn new skills. You can actually observe different combat moves in the middle of a fight and learn them on the spot, rather than spending a skill point. But for navigating the world and most combat abilities, you will be allocating earned points.

Crimson Desert features multiple playable characters. They all share loot and experience, with each having their own set of weapons and personal quests. If you get bored with one character’s story, you can easily switch to another. However, there is a big catch: they share a single pool of skill points.

The points put into one character are not available to another unless you manually pull them out. Because of this tedious micromanagement, I haven’t experimented with anybody other than the first playable character, Kliff. Swapping characters becomes a massive chore unless you have put hundreds of hours into the game and have an overflow of points to spare.

--- THE LOOT LOOP: HUNTING, GATHERING, AND UPGRADING ---

If you’re hoping to constantly find exciting new weapons and armor, you need to manage those expectations. Very rarely will a boss drop a new weapon, or a treasure chest yield a new piece of armor. Instead, most of the loot loop focuses on crafting materials. You need wood and ore to upgrade your gear, which means you’ll spend time chopping down trees and mining veins. The world is also full of life—bugs, rabbits, lizards, and buffalo—all of which can be caught or butchered to be used in potions or healing meals.

--- REPETITIVE QUESTS, MINI-GAMES, AND THE DEVELOPER’S DEDICATION ---

The side quests you find in the world don’t offer much variety. Most involve clearing enemy camps or talking to specific people, usually giving you crafting materials or extra bag space as rewards. To break up the pacing, there are many mini-games, like arm wrestling or rock-paper-scissors, which unlock related challenges. Completionists will also stay busy hunting down Sealed Abyss Artifacts linked to the game’s achievement system.

But what really gives me hope for Crimson Desert is the development team. During my first few days, minor annoyances piled up. Bag space was highly limited. Picking up a cooking recipe required me to read it for far too long to learn it, and then the paper would clutter my inventory afterward, forcing me to sell or toss it. Many actions felt downright tedious.

However, players voiced their concerns, and the developers listened. Within a week of release, they released a massive patch that added a storage system, reduced learning times, and included a long list of other fixes. Watching a studio respond and improve their game so quickly completely changes how you see the rough edges. With such dedication to the player base, despite its clunky combat and confusing story, Crimson Desert has a very promising future.

Title: Styx: Blades of Greed

Release: February 19, 2026

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S

Developer: Cyanide Studio

Publisher: Nacon

Genre: Action Adventure

ESRB: PEGI 18

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 9 Hours

Styx: Blades of Greed is the third game in a series that has carved out a very specific niche, featuring a protagonist who is as small and stealthy as he is foul-mouthed. It has been nearly ten years since I last slipped into the worn leather boots of this cynical goblin in the second game, an experience that only lasted a few hours for me at the time. As I started this new adventure, I struggled to remember exactly why I hadn't spent more time with the previous installment. However, those reasons quickly came back to me with startling clarity once I began this new journey. While there is certainly a lot to enjoy in this game, a lot of the core mechanics and design choices ultimately failed to hit the mark for me.


The variety of characters and environments is a standout feature of the game. I found myself moving from the dark, grime-coated alleyways of a city to lush green forests full of giant insects and other hidden threats. Each environment required a different strategy for staying hidden. While the graphics might not be the most advanced by today's standards, they are more than enough to convey the scale and mood of the world. However, the technical execution of these visuals sometimes hindered my progress. I struggled in the darker sections because I couldn't find a brightness or gamma setting once the campaign started. This forced me to navigate several areas in complete darkness, groping blindly until I found a light source.

Things were further complicated by inconsistent lighting; often, I could see the entire interior of a room from the hallway, only for the room to suddenly fall into unnatural shadow as I crossed the threshold. In a game where visibility is a key resource, these technical issues felt more like obstacles than deliberate gameplay challenges.

The story of Blades of Greed heavily relies on the player having in-depth knowledge of the previous two games. I appreciate a sequel that respects its fans by avoiding repetitive origin story moments, so it’s my own fault for being lost in the narrative. The story assumes familiarity with the world that a newcomer simply won't have. From what I could tell, Styx is a unique goblin who can absorb "Quartz," a volatile magical mineral that gives him enhanced physical abilities and magical powers. He partners with a crew of “friends" who seem to exist in a state of mutual, begrudging tolerance. While the overarching political plot felt beyond my understanding, the character writing was definitely a highlight. The banter between the crew members is sharp, cynical, and often genuinely funny, adding a much-needed layer of personality to an otherwise dense and sometimes confusing story.


What this series is most known for, however, is its dedication to pure stealth mechanics. Styx starts with a strong set of tools for sneaking and silent takedowns, with more advanced abilities, like clones and invisibility, unlocking as you gather items and upgrade your skill tree. The game is deliberately punishing; while you can engage in a risky sword fight against a guard or two, Styx is extremely fragile. A single missed dodge or mistimed parry nearly always results in a game-over screen. This high-stakes cycle encourages a more creative, goblin-like approach to problem-solving. If a direct route is too dangerous, you can use more treacherous tactics, such as spitting into an enemy’s food or water to poison them from afar. Staying in the rafters and shadows isn't just a playstyle here; it’s essential for survival.

Remaining in stealth felt rewarding as long as I followed a few solid rules: stick to the shadows, stay out of sight, hide the bodies, and keep noise to a minimum. Sound design plays a crucial role here, as even the clink of a falling bottle can alert guards from the next room. If I was spotted, running away was frantic and difficult, depending on how close the enemies were. However, there were moments when the game seemed to break its own rules. On more than one occasion, guards would see me through solid walls while I was standing over a dead body. These instances were rare, but they were incredibly frustrating because they felt like the game was cheating. In a stealth game, the player needs to trust that the mechanics are consistent; when that trust is broken, it makes the high difficulty feel unfair rather than challenging.


While sneaking, Styx isn’t limited to the ground. The levels feature a lot of verticality, with many climbable pipes, ledges, and nooks. My favorite addition was the grappling hook, which doubled the areas I could explore and made me feel like a true predator in the rafters. However, while it was easy to scale a building, descending was often more awkward. Styx can usually drop down and cling to objects, but I found several spots, including one right next to a fast travel hub, where there was no clear way back to the ground. This often forced me to choose between taking a long, tedious detour to find the right path down or jumping and risking fall damage just to save time. It seemed like a strange oversight in a game that otherwise emphasizes fluid movement.


Although I love the stealth genre, I found it hard to fully connect with the structure of this particular series. It often felt like I had too much freedom, pushing the game close to a sandbox experience without the crafting or customization options. I could travel between different hubs, pick up side quests, and hunt for Quartz using a compass, but these tasks never felt urgent. Reaching a Quartz deposit often required complex platforming, yet the reward never quite seemed worth the effort. As someone who is admittedly "geographically challenged," the lack of clear in-game navigation aids meant that I often got lost. Without specific skills to assist with pathfinding, I spent a lot of time wandering in circles.


I played the game for ten hours before deciding it wasn't for me. My last hour was filled with frustration as I tried to figure out how to get past a large bridge full of guards. The goal was to reach a high vantage point, but there were no clear climbing spots or grappling points. I ran around in circles until I finally lost patience and took out every guard on the bridge just to clear my mind. Even then, standing alone among dozens of lifeless bodies, I couldn't find the way forward. By that point, the game wasn't engaging enough to keep me going. It felt like I had seen everything the gameplay had to offer, except for the ending of this chapter of Styx’s story.


Because of that, I’m placing Styx: Blades of Greed on my Bottom-Shelf. If you have been a longtime fan of the series and already understand the lore and the quirks of the game, I imagine you will absolutely love what is offered here. However, if you have never experienced a Styx game before, I would strongly recommend checking out the earlier titles on sale first. This isn't the best place to start your journey with the world's grumpiest goblin.

Title: High On Life 2

Release: February 13, 2026

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S

Developer: Squanch Games

Publisher: Squanch Games

Genre: FPS Action

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 8.5 Hours

High on Life 2 is a direct extension of its predecessor, picking up almost immediately after the previous events. The experience begins with a short montage detailing our rise to fame as a bounty hunter and the subsequent poor choices that lead us to the life of a washed-up veteran long past our prime. Shortly into the adventure, my sister requires assistance due to her questionable activities across the galaxy, which sends me down a path full of danger and far removed from the idolized hero I once was.


The various designs and vibrant colors used throughout this world make for an incredible visual trip. The talking guns, known as Gatlions, look impressive and remain highly interactive during the journey. The creators threw around some truly wild ideas when designing the different alien races I had to confront or negotiate with. Visually speaking, the entire game feels like one long, chaotic hallucination.


While I genuinely appreciated the aesthetic, other elements began to fall short of that standard. The gun handling is exceptional, especially with the variety of options available, but the movement feels finicky. Instead of a traditional sprint, the game utilizes a skateboard for faster traversal. It is a neat concept in theory, but there were numerous occasions where I tried to escape an enemy quickly and accidentally hopped onto a grind spot. This would send me careening in a bizarre direction, usually right back into the dangerous situation I was trying to avoid. There is a lot to manage in terms of mobility while projectiles are flying, and I eventually found it more effective to stay behind cover rather than attempting stylish maneuvers to eliminate the opposition.


I enjoyed the humor initially, much like the first entry, but the comedy begins to feel forced and redundant before long. Most of the jokes rely on shock value, often leaning into extremely off-putting sexual themes. There is certainly plenty to laugh at, and the game features some excellently timed moments, but it is easy to grow tired of the constant barrage. If you want to keep the comedy fresh, it is probably best to play in short sessions rather than trying to marathon through the entire thing.


The protagonist remains silent, leaving the speaking roles to the Gatlions. On many occasions, I was given a choice of how to respond and selected one of my weapons to act as my voice. There are several choices throughout the game that can alter minor details, though nothing significantly changes the main path. The exception is one specific choice involving an achievement, which you can discover for yourself. Once I became familiar with the different Gatlions, it became easy to predict how each would respond to a given situation.


The progression isn't just a simple run and gun experience. Along with different combat styles, each Gatlion possesses a special ability used outside of combat to solve specific puzzles or overcome obstacles. Most of these were enjoyable, but the puzzles requiring me to swap between multiple Gatlions repeatedly became a chore. While swapping weapons is simple enough, the constant back and forth turned small sections into tedious hurdles.

I focused primarily on the main story during my time with the game, leaving the side activities until after the credits rolled. The primary path takes about ten hours to complete, with perhaps another ten hours available for those who want to track down missing chests or finish extra content. The activities I sampled after the ending were fun, such as chasing a high score in a skateboard mini-game or performing at a stand-up club, but I felt no regret for ignoring them during my initial run.



Overall, I don’t feel this game justifies the full asking price of a new release. The humor and gameplay mechanics were not quite enough to keep me fully entertained. It is perfect for a few cheap laughs, but the experience starts to feel repetitive. If you are someone who cannot get enough of the specific humor from the first entry, you will likely enjoy this.

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Title: Nioh 3

Release: February 5, 2026

Platform: PS5 PC

Developer: Koei Tecmo Games CO.

Publisher: Koei Tecmo Games CO.

Genre: RPG Action Souls-like

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 40.5 Hours

I spent forty hours getting my butt kicked by legends of Japanese history, and honestly, I’m ready for forty more.

I never actually played the first entry in this series, but I fell head over heels for the sequel. Because of that, I had high expectations for this third installment, and I can happily say it lived up to every bit of that anticipation. The loop of overcoming grueling challenges, the meticulous hunt for the perfect equipment, and the ability to customize a character to fit a specific vision are incredibly addictive. I can’t put this game down.

The various Yokai serving as the primary opposition are fascinating. If you don’t know, Yokai are supernatural beings drawn directly from Japanese folklore. After the series first introduced me to them, I spent time researching the creatures I fought and genuinely enjoyed learning the history behind these real-world monsters. The attention to detail extends to the cast as well, since most of the characters are based on historical figures famous for their feats during that era. While I wouldn’t call myself a history buff, there is a unique satisfaction in reading about the legend who just finished kicking my butt in a boss fight.

One of the standout elements is the design of the creatures. They are equal parts terrifying and formidable. Most of them look the part, though a few appear deceptive. Some enemies didn’t look particularly strong, yet they would consistently surprise me by landing a flurry of hits before I could even react. This high level of design is consistent across the various environments and characters as well.

Mid-combat, the game offers a mechanic to instantly switch between Ninja and Samurai styles. To be honest, I rarely used this. I stuck with the Ninja path because I prefer a high-speed approach. My strategy involves landing several quick strikes before retreating to throw projectiles, which I find more engaging than a stationary build focused on parrying and heavy, slow attacks. The sheer volume of weapon choices and builds felt a little overwhelming at first, so I committed to a single weapon and a focused Ninja style. While splitting the loot pool between the two styles wasn’t a deal breaker, I found it frustrating that dropped accessories were locked to one style or the other. This made farming for specific gear much more tedious than it needed to be.

Fortunately, a blacksmith was available to craft specific equipment, provided I had the necessary recipes and currency. With the massive amount of loot I gathered, the toughest decision was whether to sell everything for gold or dismantle it for parts. I eventually found a set of gear that offered perfect bonuses for a projectile-focused build, but maintaining that equipment became expensive as the difficulty scaled. When crafting gear, the attributes are randomized. If I got a lucky roll, I would invest in leveling that piece up. If it rolled poorly, I would simply craft a newer version at a higher level to save money.

The game’s world structure is another interesting highlight. Rather than a single massive landmass, the game is broken into large, sectioned maps from different eras. Each section has a recommended level. When I started, I headed straight for the most difficult area available, which was about sixteen levels above my own. I gained levels so quickly that by the time I finished that section, the rest of that map became trivial because I was defeating enemies too quickly. However, that power trip ended as I progressed. Even when I met the level requirements, the enemies became significantly more aggressive, forcing me to use every tool at my disposal to survive.

I chose the kusarigama as my primary weapon. Like all the weapons here, it has an extensive list of moves. Specific button combinations trigger different attacks, with multiple possible attacks per combination. Unlocking the skill tree for a weapon grants access to these moves, which I then managed in a separate menu. There were many impressive skills available, and while I tried to experiment, I usually fell back on a few reliable favorites to win the tougher encounters.

I am currently nearly forty hours into the game and haven’t even finished the first journey. I am already looking forward to the higher difficulty tiers and the hunt for even rarer equipment. Eventually, it will shift into a dedicated grind for gear, but the challenges remain rewarding and the world is a joy to explore. I expect to be playing this for a long time, especially if future DLC adds even more depth.

With that, it is time to give this game a formal rating and place it on the shelf.

The visuals are stunning, particularly the creature designs, earning it a 5.

The story is decent, though it feels somewhat typical and repetitive. It wasn’t my primary focus, but it served its purpose in moving the action forward, so I’ll give it a 3.

The gameplay is where Nioh truly excels. The depth of customization and the constant challenge provide immense value, earning another 5.

The longevity is impressive because of how much there is to find and the inclusion of a more difficult second playthrough, which earns a 4.

I am still having fun playing this game. I love everything about it. I can hardly put it down. That is another 5.

This brings the average score for Nioh 3 to a 4.4 out of 5, earning it a spot in my special reserve. If you appreciate Japanese mythology and demanding combat, this is something you should experience. You don’t need to have played the previous titles to understand what’s happening, though you might miss some context for certain aspects of the game. There are also significant quality-of-life improvements compared to older entries. However, if this doesn’t seem like your thing right now, you can check out the other reviews appearing on the screen to find something that fits your taste.

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Title: Code Vein II

Release: January 29, 2026

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S

Developer: Bandai Namco Studios Inc.

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

Genre: Action RPG Souls Like

ESRB: T

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 22.5 Hours

Intro

Saving humanity and Revenant-kind requires more than a big sword: it requires a trip to the past to find the heroes who failed before you. You are tasked with navigating a crumbling open world where every blood code you find changes how you fight and every partner you recruit brings their own baggage and constant commentary. Stick around to learn about what you can expect from the mechanics, or skip ahead to my final thoughts and ratings.

Where it starts

You wake in a world perched on the brink of total annihilation. As one of the rare individuals gifted with extraordinary abilities, the burden of saving existence falls squarely on your shoulders. You are not alone, though: you are accompanied by Lou, a unique Revenant who can manipulate the flow of time itself. Together, you will navigate between the past and the present to uncover hidden truths and strike down the formidable enemies pushing the world toward its grave. Along this arduous journey through the ages, you will forge new alliances and face dangerous rivals, all in a desperate bid to preserve the future for both humans and Revenants.

Time Travel

Hidden across the world are mysterious cocoons containing the twisted, malformed remains of heroes from bygone eras. You’ll need to fight them to restore order to the land. Before you can crack these shells open and engage them in battle, you must use your powers to travel back to a time when these legends were still in their prime. By interacting with them and learning their personal tales, you will secure vital items tied to their essence. These artifacts are the keys needed to access their cocoons in your own time. You are warned not to meddle with the timeline, but your actions in the past can radically alter the landscape of the future, sometimes leading to better outcomes if you make the right choices.

Open World

The adventure takes you across a sprawling open world teeming with aggressive enemies, hidden dungeons, and valuable treasures. During your early hours learning the game, you will be traveling on foot, though you can use fast travel to return to any mistle you have previously discovered. Once you gain full access to the map, you receive a motorcycle to help you cross the vast distances. It offers a slight speed boost over running, but it rarely feels like a high-performance machine. While exploring, you have access to a large map, but its verticality can make it quite challenging to read when you are navigating areas with multiple levels and floors.

Working with Partners

As you progress through the story, you’ll encounter various characters who are either eager to help or have their own agendas that require your assistance. These allies become your constant companions in battle, providing significant stat boosts and powerful buffs while actively attacking your foes. If your health drops to zero, you can briefly absorb your partner to gain a second chance at life. However, if you fall while they are merged with you, it is an immediate game over. While they are invaluable in a fight, you might find their constant talking and commentary on your surroundings a bit overwhelming over time.

Blood Codes

By defeating bosses or strengthening your bond with partners, you earn special blood codes. These form the foundation of your character’s build, determining your primary stats and granting access to specialized combat abilities. Certain weapons and skills are ineffective unless you have the specific stat distribution provided by your chosen code. As you fight enemies that match your current power level, a proficiency meter fills for each code you use. Once you fully master a specific blood code, you can return to the person who gave it to you to receive an even more powerful, upgraded version to further refine your build.

Character Construction

At the start of your journey, you can fully customize your character’s appearance. If you want a fresh look later on, you can revisit a mirror at any time to adjust your appearance. Beyond your physical appearance, the game offers a deep system of numbers and statistics to help you forge a lethal combat style. Unlike traditional games in this genre, you do not level up individual stats directly. Instead, your attributes are determined by your active blood code. Every piece of equipment you wear draws from your available points, and if you exceed your limit, you will become overburdened, which could help or hurt your effectiveness in combat.

Weapons, Jails, & Boosters

You have access to a massive arsenal, ranging from lightning-fast blades for dazzling combos to massive, heavy weapons that trade speed for devastating raw power. To supplement your martial skills, you can use Jails to drain ichor from your enemies. This ichor serves as fuel for your magical spells and special combat techniques. Using these powerful items requires meeting specific stat thresholds first. Additionally, you can equip various boosters that serve as your accessories. These items provide essential support by increasing your core statistics, enhancing your combat prowess, and offering various passive benefits that help you survive the world’s many dangers.

Forma

Every weapon in your inventory has dedicated forma slots. These powerful enhancements grant you access to unique combat maneuvers or destructive magic you can hurl at your enemies. You have four of these slots, though you must carefully manage your conversion points, as some forma are much more taxing on your equipment than others. Activating these skills requires a steady supply of ichor. If you find your reserves running low during a frantic battle, you can stagger your opponent to trigger a cinematic drain attack with your jail. This move allows you to replenish your energy and keep your magical offensive going without missing a beat.

Can the kids watch

When it comes to dialogue, you’ll encounter some mild language, but the game generally avoids the most offensive curse words. Visually, the graphics are stylized and avoid excessive gore, dismemberment, or realistic blood splatter. The story contains some tragic and emotional moments, but they stay within the boundaries of a teen-rated experience rather than delving into truly disturbing or adult themes. Combat is frequent and follows a cartoony violence style that earned the game its rating. Overall, this is a safe title to play if the younger members of the household want to hang out and watch you explore the world.

Final Thoughts

It had been about four years since I played the first Code Vein, and that history definitely helped me get my bearings with the blood codes and general flow. However, I was not prepared for how sluggish the combat felt initially. I breezed through the trash mobs, but the first real boss absolutely humbled me for a long time. It was a combination of not having enough abilities yet and simply needing to adjust to the specific tempo of this game. Once I cleared that hurdle, everything clicked. I still saw the death screen plenty of times, but not to the same things. After a few hours, I found my groove and the game felt much easier once I dialed in the right builds.

Mastering the combat was a highlight for me. I found a specific rotation of skills that felt powerful and I honestly spammed them until every boss went down. My only real gripe with the action was the constant chatter from my partners. They wouldn’t stop talking even after the swords were put away. They commented on every single chest, elevator, and even my driving skills. It would have been a huge improvement if I could have dialed back their frequency.

I’ve always had a soft spot for anime, so the visual design really appealed to me. My only struggle was with the character creator when I tried to make an “ugly” avatar. The system seems built for beauty, so all my designs ended up looking very similar. The best I could do was a hero fighting in nothing but a towel, which felt appropriately ridiculous for saving the world. It was a shame the NPCs didn’t have anything to say about my bold fashion choices.

Regarding the time travel, I expected the open world to feel twice as big, but it was mostly just color swaps and different enemies. I could use the past to find new routes or specific dungeons, but the time-hopping felt more like a story device than a game-changing mechanic. I also found the main story a bit hard to follow at points. I knew the world was in trouble and I had to fix it, but the details got muddy. I actually preferred the smaller side stories and helping my partners with their personal traumas. I haven’t finished the whole thing yet, but I’m curious enough to see how it all ends.

I did appreciate that the game helped me manage the complex character building. With so many blood codes and stats to track, the help menus and the in-game journal were lifesavers. Using blood codes to manage stats also took some of the pressure off. I just had to collect enough Haze and bring it to a mistle to boost my base stats like HP and attack. It did suck having to wait for the game to hand me specific codes for the dexterity build I wanted, but I managed well enough with the weaker options until the right ones finally unlocked.

Ratings

The VISUALS were great: the performance was smooth and the chaotic, high-energy designs looked amazing on screen, so I’m giving those a 4.

I found the STORY to be a bit muddy regarding the world’s history, but the character-specific side tales and personal growth were strong enough to earn a 3.

The GAMEPLAY was a mix of fun and confusion: there is almost too much data to track regarding defenses, but smashing enemies with a custom build is solid enough for a 3.

The LONGEVITY is quite decent here, as the open world is large and full of enough secrets to keep you busy long after the main quest ends, earning it a 3.

My overall FUN was high: I loved the rush of mastering boss patterns and the satisfaction of finally overcoming a tough challenge, resulting in a 4.

Giving Code Vein 2 an average score of 3.4 out of 5. Earning it a spot on my Top Shelf. If you are looking for a souls-like experience with a heavy anime motif, I highly recommend giving this one a look. You don’t even need to have played the first game to enjoy this, as it features a fresh story and new characters. I’m still working my way through it myself and I’m having a blast every time I boot it up.

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Title: Routine

Release: December 4, 2025

Platform: PC Xbox One X|S

Developer: Lunar Software

Publisher: Raw Fury

Genre: First Person Horror

ESRB: T

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 8 Hours

Where it starts

You wake up in a small room with a small computer welcoming you to the lunar base. As an engineer, you are there to help fix some of the faulty equipment. A nearby computer will ask you to perform some stretches before you can print an ID card and head out on your mission. Once outside, you will be greeted by a lot of loud noises and flashing lights, guiding you to the only available room at the end of the hallway. That room is a small classroom that teaches you all about the C.A.T., a very important tool necessary to make it through the lunar base.

Working with the C.A.T.

The Cosmonaut Assistance Tool is the only way forward in many cases. You need it to connect to computers so you can save your progress. You’ll find mods that add more functions to the C.A.T., like a black light that shows hidden clues for solving a code or puzzle and a security module that opens some doors. If you find yourself in danger, it can also be used as a deterrent by shooting the threat. Using the C.A.T. drains the battery with every use. But no need to worry; spare batteries are scattered throughout the base. You won’t be able to carry extras. When your battery isn’t full, it will automatically swap out for a new one when you pick one up.

Navigating a Lunar Base

Routine is broken up into chapters and sections of the lunar base. You will be given tasks to study at save points, guiding you through each area. Most objectives are hidden behind puzzles in the form of code discoveries or key items. You will need to read every note and diary entry you find to point you in the right direction. Items you can pick up do not shine or stand out; you will need to look directly at them before you know they can be grabbed.

The codes required to unlock computers and doors are randomized each playthrough. Because of this, you won’t be able to look up the code if you can’t find it. However, you can get some assistance on where to find the clues that lead you to a solution. Some of the puzzles get very intense, inundating you with a lot of information to sift through while searching for the answer. While some codes are complicated, a couple can be solved through brute force if the hints are few and hard to follow.

The Horror

Exploring the lunar base isn’t without its dangers. Between the malfunctioning security system and grotesque monsters prowling the hallways, you will constantly be looking over your shoulder and stopping at every noise, no matter how minor. While your C.A.T. can stop some enemies, it’s only temporary, your best option is to hide under tables and move quietly. Regardless of how sneaky you are or how comfortable you feel running around, odds are you’re going to get surprised and caught.

Can the kids watch

There isn’t much in terms of language you’ll need to watch out for. The biggest issues would arise from the freaky looks of some enemies and the overly gruesome deaths that could occur when you’re caught off guard. A lot of the game is spent on the edge, exploring dark corridors with unknown sounds constantly following. If you’re looking for a fun, scary night with the kids, it will definitely deliver.

Final Thoughts

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.

Routine was described as a look into the future from the perspective of the 80s, and it did an excellent job of creating that kind of environment. However, the biggest issue with the futuristic retro look was trying to navigate through a fuzzy lens that made it difficult to decipher what I was looking at. The first couple of hours were difficult as I traversed the dark corridors. Eventually, I got used to it, and it wasn’t as bad.

There was hardly any assistance when I needed to find key items for progression. Unlike other games, the items here didn’t flash, glint, or glow. I had to move my camera just right to center an item on my screen. If I was close enough and it could be picked up, a special icon would appear. Some items were very small and easy to miss, so I ran around the same area for way too long before I found them. Most of the time, it was my fault for missing crucial hints, like a sticky note on a computer or a sentence in a journal. Paying attention in this game is key to finishing in a timely manner.

I found a few of the puzzles entertaining to solve, and I love that most of the numbered combinations in this game can differ from someone else’s playthrough, requiring the work involved for each solution. But, as fun as some of the puzzles were, there were plenty that I did not like, either by giving me too much information, practically forcing me to brute-force my way through, or by giving me convoluted instructions I had a hard time understanding. And I couldn’t get comfortable while trying to figure things out. In some areas, the enemies would patrol and attack me from behind if I stood in front of a computer screen for too long, but that added tension to the gameplay that kept it from going stale.

I finished the game after playing for eight hours, and I can honestly say I don’t know what the story was about. I understood some of the world-building parts, like equipment going awry and a lot of people dying, but I never got solid answers, and that may have been the point. I’m not a fan of artsy stories with huge meaning behind metaphors and odd imagery. I could always go through the story again and maybe glean more from it, but it wasn’t good for a second go-through of everything.

Ratings

With that it feels like it’s time to boil these thoughts into numbers and place this game on one of my shelves.

The visuals were unique, but I didn’t care for the fuzzy lens from which I had to view everything, that’s a 2

The story was kind of interesting throughout, but became very convoluted by the end, I’m giving that a 1.

Gameplay had it’s ups and downs, most puzzles were good, getting lost and avoiding monsters became tiresome, that’s another 2

There is no longevity here, after the initial playthrough I will not be playing this game any longer, earning it a 0.

I didn’t have much fun here, some of the jump scares were great, but the rest felt tedious, getting another 1.

Giving Routine an average score of 1.2 out of 5. Earning it a spot on my Bottom shelf. I didn’t enjoy much of this game. Although it made me jump a few times, those moments were all in the final hours of gameplay. Before that, it was easy to avoid danger and move along. I couldn’t make much of the story, but you might if you played it yourself.

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Title: A.I.L.A.

Release: November 25, 2025

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S

Developer: Pulsatrix Studios

Publisher: Fireshine Games

Genre: Horror

Pegi: 18

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 11 Hours

Where it starts

You will be playing from the perspective of Samual, a video game tester who lives alone in an apartment and never seems to live, with everything you need to survive delivered via drone. You focus mainly on VR games, and one day the company you work for sends you their most recent “game”. An advanced A.I. named A.I.L.A., with your permission, looks into who you are and creates a game tailored to give you the most immersive experience. But A.I.L.A. might be a little too invasive, and things quickly take a turn.

Testing A.I.L.A.

The first game A.I.L.A. gives you is fairly simple. After getting through that, she learns a little more and starts creating more advanced experiences for you, with stories that get deeper and larger areas to explore. The stories and areas change, but every single game tends to be geared toward a horror experience full of enemies that want to kill you, constantly barraging you with noise, never knowing if you’re about to be attacked and constantly looking over your shoulder.

Navigating New Games

Mechanically, every game is on the easier side, with a few different weapons you can find to defend yourself. Melee weapons that can be used to attack or defend against attacks, and some form of ranged weapon with very limited ammunition. The only helpful items are a beverage of some sort that will heal 40% of your overall health, and a lily flower that can be mixed with it to increase its strength to 100. Beyond the base mechanics, you will explore different stories filled with puzzles and key items that will slowly bring you to a conclusion.

Karma System

You’re notified very early in the A.I.L.A. testing about a karma system she employs. Depending on your choices and how you progress through the game, your karma score will be affected. You’ll never see your karma score or when it changes, but it will dictate how your overall story will turn out. There was only one item in the game that flat-out tells you it will affect your karma every time it’s used.

Life of A Game Tester

Between testing games, you’ll get to explore the apartment, drink some tea, and manage various chores. Your only roommate is a cat named Jones, who will need to be fed a couple of times. You’ll always be receiving packages and need to place the box somewhere in the apartment so you can open it and mess with the contents. While exploring the apartment, you can find items that help you learn a little more about who Samuel is and some light reading, including children’s books that seem a little too horrifying for kids to read and a big read book missing all of its pages, which can only be filled out by finding hidden collectibles within A.I.L.A.’s games.

Can the kids watch

This game is full of graphic material, blood, gore, and appendages getting chopped off. You will also hear a fair share of curse words. On top of all that there were plenty of scary situations dealing with different monsters. This game certainly earned it’s mature rating of pegi 18. You might want to think twice before letting the kiddos hang out for this one.

Final Thoughts

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.

A.I.L.A. was an interesting game full of games to play. Although the environments changed, the core mechanics never did, so it was never jarring to start a new game created by A.I.L.A. This is an indie game, but it’s also about advanced A.I. creating games on the spot, so the fact that the games feel indie makes sense with the story, and I got a kick out of that. It’s not the fastest or shiniest game, but it worked smoothly and never crashed on me.

The graphics for the game were pretty good, but it almost seemed like they were a little too much when it came to the people. They were smooth and had an almost high-definition look, but whenever A.I.L.A. came onto the screen, there was a little choppiness as the game tried to catch up with her. Other than that, the environments looked good, albeit a little dark and gritty. I could see where I was going.

The overall story for this game was definitely a psychological horror, with the idea of rogue A.I. having too much power and abusing it. Samuel’s story was very sparse until the end. I enjoyed it, but it felt roughly presented. There were some clues and hints that could be found around the apartment, but in the end I think there could have been a bit more of a build-up to the conclusion. I was surprised, and it felt powerful. It was just a touch contrived.

Movement was very slow throughout the entire game. It all felt the same whether I was in the apartment or in an A.I.L.A. game. Sometimes enemies could move fast, and in those cases I would take a lot of damage if I wanted to take them out without a gun. But if I had enough ammo and was constantly moving, I could avoid most attacks, even with the slow movement speed. There were some clever puzzles in the game that could only be solved if I found certain clues or picked up on specific imagery. Figuring them out felt like an awesome accomplishment. The answers didn’t feel like they were handed to me; they were designed in such a way that I felt smarter than I really am when I got the solution.

There are a few different outcomes in the game, depending on the Karma system and choices made throughout the story. It took me eleven hours to get through the game the first time, and I’m sure it wouldn’t take that long to go through again, but I’m not sure I’d want to go through it all again just to see how it can end. Perhaps after letting it rest for a while, I’d be tempted to go through it and make different choices, but with everything so fresh, I wouldn’t do it with all the other things I could be doing instead.

It had some scary sections, some boring areas, and segments full of noise that could put me on edge and set me up to be startled, or just become too much and overload the senses, making it a nuisance. There were A.I. games that seemed to try to be scary by overplaying a distant noise, making it very redundant, while others set up the perfect jump scare. It was never consistent in terms of being scary and fun, with a lot of ups and downs.

And now it’s time to break these thought down to numbers and place this game on a shelf.

The visuals were great, but felt like they were to much for the game to handle at times, I’ll give it a 3.

The story was very interesting and felt complete, albeit a little forced in the end. That’s another 3

The gameplay was easy to understand and very slow. It wasn’t a chore to play, it just never felt like I was doing anything new the entire time, that’s a 2.

There is a little longevity to the game with the different choices and outcomes, the only thing holding me back is the slow pace, giving it another 2.

I had some bits of fun with the game, between being scared to move forward and solving puzzles, but the majority of it was to redundant, I’m giving it a 2.

Earning A.I.L.A an average score of 2.4 out of 5. Placing it on my Mid-Shelf. If your looking for a tense experience about how scary A.I. can be I would recommend checking this one out. It may have it’s fair share of slow parts, but the story was interesting and it was neat to see the different games A.I.L.A. came up with to play.

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Thank you, Marmot Lab, for the copy of the game to review!

Title: The Valley Beyond

Release: November 20, 2025

Platform: PC

Developer: Marmot Lab

Publisher: Marmot Lab

Genre: Exploration Puzzle Soothing

ESRB: N/A

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 7 Hours

The Valley Beyond pulls you into a synthetic body and places you in a tranquil park full of mysteries and art waiting to be discovered. A huge thank you to Marmot Lab for the opportunity to explore this serene world. I will start by breaking down what you can expect from the game mechanics, or you can skip ahead to my final thoughts and ratings. Join me on this beautiful, relaxing journey through the valley.

Where it starts

In the future, you can send your mind into a synthetic body to explore anywhere your heart desires. In this case, you choose the Valley, a peaceful park with hidden treasures throughout for you to explore and discover. The only guide is a disembodied voice that explains the basic mechanics or hints at how some art can come to life. Enjoy the beautiful Valley and immerse yourself in the calming environments this world has to offer.

Finding/Solving Art

Your main objective after stepping into the valley is to find pieces of art lying around and activate them through various actions. You’ll know you’re near a special piece when you start to hear music in the distance. The closer you get, the louder the music becomes. When you position yourself close to the art, you may receive a bit of advice from your guide, hinting at what you need to do to activate the art and add it to your collection. To help with further navigation, a red beam of light will shine toward the sky from any art you haven’t found. Look quickly, though, because the light doesn’t stay forever.

Navigating The Valley

The valley may be a relaxing experience, but it’s not without its risks. Some areas will have prickly purple flowers, your unable to swim in the water. Gravity is always lurking, ready to take you out, and if you allow yourself to run out of stamina, you will keel over. To maintain your stamina, you will need to interact with green orbs lying around. After interacting, you gain some stamina and will create a new spawn point if you happen to hurt yourself too badly.

Special Upgrades

At the start, you can sprint, jump, and crouch. The deeper into the valley you explore, you’ll eventually find upgrades for your body, such as a larger stamina cache or even wings that allow you to glide a short distance. With each addition to your body, more of the valley will become accessible through the upgrades. You’ll be unable to reach the end of the valley without these upgrades, so they are just as important to find as the art.

Collectibles

Tracking down masterpieces may be the main objective, but you can still find plenty of smaller art and collectibles. You can keep track of how many you’ve found in a collectible journal through your menu, however, it will only tell you how many you’ve found, not which ones. Among the collectibles are old pieces of art from previous iterations of the valley, which are a little tougher to find because they aren’t accompanied by music or have the pretty black sheen of active art pieces.

A Hidden Story

On the surface, The Valley Beyond seems like a chill game, letting you leisurely explore and discover art, but hidden around the valley in cassette form are messages. Reading them alludes to a story hidden within your adventure. It’s not necessary to read these messages to finish your journey, but they’re an intriguing part of the game worth exploring.

Can the kids watch (check settings)

The environments and words within this game are clean and appropriate. There may be risks to your life in the form of pointy plants, or you may fall to your death, but it’s not graphic and the sound effects are minimal. If the kids wanted to hang out and watch you explore the pretty valley and listen to the soothing music of untamed art, I don’t see any problems there.

Final Thoughts

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.

The Valley Beyond features some absolutely gorgeous environments. I loved the foliage of the forests and the beach’s sound effects. The only places I didn’t care for were either very sandy or cold, but that’s more of a me problem than the game. It was still well done. It was crazy how big the valley looked from a vantage point, yet it didn’t feel like any time at all to run from one side to the other. The pretty trees and animals made excellent distractions for the journey.

There was a small story in the backdrop of the entire game. It took me a few hours of exploring before I started finding the notes around the valley that told the story. It was interesting and raised many questions about what the valley really was, and I began to wonder who I was. Sadly, by the end I was left with many more questions than answers and felt unfulfilled by the little story I had found.

Navigating the valley was easy to understand. Some areas I could traverse, while others were designed to hold me back, forcing me to find another route. It’s a game with minimal handholding and guidance, but not terribly complex to figure out. It felt like it was designed for me to take it slow and enjoy the journey. Forcing my way through difficult terrain never paid off, and there was always a simpler path. The voice was always there to remind me of this fact. She was so intent on telling me that rocks are slick that there were times I was very annoyed, especially when I would intentionally slide down a rock path.

I finished the game after seven hours of gameplay without discovering every collectible. I would probably spend another couple of hours exploring to track all of that down. As far as replaying from the start, it wouldn’t take nearly as long to find everything, but it might be a nice reprieve from the chaos of the real world. Taking a few minutes to enjoy the journey throughout the valley and the relaxing gameplay.

The Valley Beyond is a relaxing, fun game that doesn’t intend to cause any stress. The only times I was getting upset were my own fault, pushing into situations I wasn’t supposed to. When played calmly and taking my time, it’s perfect. A great game to wind down with and just absorb.

With that, I would like to get the numbers up here and place this game on a shelf.

The visuals were great, I love the black chic of the character and art, and the environments are very well done, that’s a 5

The story was intriguing but vague, without a proper conclusion I was left with to many questions, that’s a 2.

The gameplay was great, worked how it was intended for the most part, still a few kinks to work out, I’ll give it a 3.

A little replayability if I ever feel like revisiting a calming game, this would be it, earning it a 2.

Decent amount of fun here, especially when I practice patience and not push the boundaries, giving it a 4.

Leaving The Valley Beyond with an average score of 3.2 out of 5, earning it a spot on my Top Shelf. It’s a great game to finish the busy day with, full of new discoveries and pretty places to travel. There were some minor issues while playing but nothing game breaking, and I have it on good authority that the developer is actively working to resolve any major issues that are found.